Manufacturing of neolithic Beads
General Remark:
This description doesn't lift up any claim of completeness, it should be seen only as a hypothetical dissertation in accordance with the materials being with me. Furthermore this contribution could support and fix own experiences and observations and giving perhaps some thinking impulses.
Corrections and additions are reserved!
Introduction:
Still until today the millenniums old love of the people to beautiful beads is unbroken. I have tried to catch this fascination on an approximately
4000 years old agate bead from Afghanistan.
Therefore it is understandable that to all times people have produced beautiful beads with large effort and time expenditure.
This contribution shall point out the effort and work of the old masters of these gems, which were able to produce these beautiful beads with simplest tools.
to produce beads. The tools shown are securely not complete. Additional mallets made of wood or bone, settings for drills, pecking tools and quartz sand, sinews together with greases to string the unpolished beads to each other and much more tools were used.
Measurements: 97x36 mm, Weight: 343 g
These tools were used either direct or with a setting from wood or bone. That they were used for pecking the bead holes, you can recognize at the dulled tool points and the bead holes. That striking power on the drills were carried out, directly or indirectly, you can partly recognize chipping at the ends of the drill heads.
General:
The production of neolithic stone beads from the group of hard Chalcedonia as Carnelian, Jasper, Silex, Agate and others, required long experience and skill with the peculiarities of these materials.
Basic requirement for the production of a stone bead was:
It might only be used unobjectionable, homogeneous material, without micro cracks and/or fossil inclusions and/or other material changements.
At this time it was surely not easy, but with good lighting conditions and a striking check, an experienced craftsman already could pre-select the material quite well.
Measurements:
ca. 19x15 mm
The pecking work was executed from both sides, the break through isn't finished at these preform beads yet.
Pre-pecked preform beads
within various processing phases. These preform beads are refused, because at the processing uncontrolled chipping (splintering) appeared, the material had microcracks or was not homogeneous.
Pre-pecked preform beads
Interesting is the preform bead above on the right, centrically this one shows the first pecking stroke, the bright point in the middle.
The retouched surfaces to reduce the single bead to the approximate size can be recognized well.
Before one started with the grinding process, the exceeding material was taken down as far as possible by edge chipping. In this processing phase the front faces were already pre-polished.
THE BEAD!
