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Lot 266B
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Sumerian Stone, Shell & Faience Bead Necklaces - Six Black & White Strands
Sumerian Stone, Shell & Faience Bead Necklaces - Six Black & White Strands
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Mesopotamia, Sumerian, ca. 3000–2000 BCE. A cascade of six strands gathers thousands of small disc and tubular beads into a rhythmic interplay of slate gray and chalky white. The beads, ancient in origin, are worked from steatite and other stone, shell, and faience, each one drilled by hand and worn smooth across the millennia. Strung on modern cords for contemporary wear, the necklaces preserve the alternating dark and light cadence that once adorned the inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, where bead ornaments signaled status, devotion, and the eye for pattern that runs through Sumerian craft. The monochrome palette lends the ensemble a quiet austerity, a graphic counterpoint to the lapis and carnelian of grander Sumerian jewelry, and a testament to the enduring human delight in stringing small beautiful things in measured succession. Size of largest bead (roughly): 0.2" D x 0.2" H (0.5 cm D x 0.5 cm H); of longest necklace: 22" L (55.9 cm L).

Faience, one of the materials represented here, is among the earliest synthetic substances made by human hands: a ground quartz paste that vitrifies in the kiln to yield a hard, lustrous bead, prized across the ancient Near East long before true glass. Steatite (soapstone) was favored for its softness, easily carved and bored before hardening, and could be glazed to mimic costlier stones. Beads such as these were produced in quantity throughout Sumerian cities, strung in multiple rows to encircle the neck and wrists of the living and to accompany the dead, as the great cemetery at Ur famously revealed.

Provenance: Collection of Y. Kayvan, Los Angeles, California, USA, acquired from a Los Angeles, California, USA gallery acquisition dates range from the late 1990s to 2005

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Item # 203214

  • Condition: Very Good. Ancient beads strung on modern strands to be wearable. Some chips, nick, abrasions, and small losses to beads, all commensurate with age. Otherwise, all are very nice with good remaining forms.

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by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Artemis Fine Arts

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