Lot 265

3rd Millennium BCE Sumerian Faience & Steatite Bead Hoard - One Pound

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Lot 265
3rd Millennium BCE Sumerian Faience & Steatite Bead Hoard - One Pound

3rd Millennium BCE Sumerian Faience & Steatite Bead Hoard - One Pound

Estimate: $800 - $1,200

Starting Bid: $400

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT (In Progress)
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Ancient Near East, Mesopotamia, Sumerian, ca. 3000–2000 BCE. A generous full pound of ancient beads gathered from the cradle of civilization, a pale and slate-gray drift of tiny disks and short cylinders that once strung through the markets, sanctuaries, and household altars of Sumer. Each bead is diminutive, hand-shaped from siliceous faience or carved from soft, dark steatite, then pierced through the center for stringing. The faience examples retain traces of their original glazed surfaces in chalky cream and bluish-gray tones, while the steatite specimens show a denser, charcoal cast, polished smooth by handling and burial alike.

Beads of this scale and form served as the foundational vocabulary of Mesopotamian adornment. Strung in long necklaces, sewn onto garments, wrapped at the wrist or ankle, or pooled in funerary deposits, they signalled status, devotion, and protection. Faience, the earliest synthetic vitreous material, was prized for its luminous quality, perhaps invoking the radiance attributed to deities and royalty. Steatite, by contrast, lent itself to crisp carving and accepted heat-treatment readily, producing the muted, stone-like beads that balance the brighter faience in compositions of this kind.

Lots such as this, recovered in bulk from tell sites across southern Mesopotamia, preserve the everyday material density of Sumerian life. They invite reassembly into period-appropriate strands, study collections, or display groupings that honor the small, intimate scale of the ancient bead-maker's craft. Size of each bead (roughly): 0.2" D x 0.2" H (0.5 cm D x 0.5 cm H); total weight: 1 pound.

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 # 203172

  • Condition: Very Good. Some nicks, abrasions, and weathering to beads, all commensurate with age. Otherwise, all are intact, in very nice condition, and wearable.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $299 $25
$300 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 + $20,000