Beads

Articles on beads and bead making, one of the most distinctive and well-developed crafts in ancient Indus culture.

Some Important Aspects of Technology and Craft Production in the Indus Civilization with Specific Reference to Gujarat

Kuldeep Bhan
It is really nice in a paper to be able to speak both of what is happening now, at the cutting-edge of bead and shell-making Indus craftsmanship and continuing discoveries, and be able to relate each tradition back to its earliest appearance in the subcontinent and elsewhere.

Indus Stone Beads in the Ghaggar Plain with a Focus on the Evidence from Farmana and Mitathal

Akinori Uesugi
The first in-depth look at stone beads from Indus sites besides Harappa, in this case two just south of Rakigarhi. Stone beads include those made of steatite (the vast majority, about 91%), carnelian (8%), as well as jasper, agate, lapis luzuli, limestone and more. Steatite and carnelian beads are found at levels corresponding to all time periods.

Early Evidence of Bead- Making at Mehrgarh, Pakistan: A Tribute to the Scientific Curiosity of Catherine and Jean- François Jarrige

Massimo Vidale
Jean-Francois Jarrige (1940-2014) and his wife Catherine (b. 1942) were two of the most important archaeologists in the South Asian region, whose excavations at Mehrgarh, the site in Balochistan which predates the ancient Indus civilization by thousands of years, helped determine how far back the development of various traditions found in that and other regional civilizations actually reached.

INAA of agate sources and artifacts from the Indus, Helmand, and Thailand Regions

Randall Law
"Geologically speaking," write the authors, "agate is not a particularly uncommon rock . . .. However, good agate – i.e, that which ancient lapidaries would have found suitable for beadmaking – is not widely available. Nodules of the size and quality required to make Harappan-style long-barrel carnelian beads are, in fact, extremely rare" (p. 177).