Art Jewelry Buzz: Ancient Beads

In my work, I strive for a sense of timelessness by incorporating ancient archetypes and forms into the beads and other jewelry elements I create. I mostly do this by letting my hands and eyes do the "talking". I take my brain out of the process and let whatever I make unfold. Other times I sketch and let ideas pour out onto pages of my notebooks. I also look to sources of inspiration.

Lately, I've been crawling all over the internet finding information, books and images related to the topic of Ancient Beads. I am frankly astonished at how OLD the art of beads is.

I thought I might share a few links and images from my wanderings that I hope will inspire you as well...

Beads go way back, I mean seriously WAY back, 

as in at least 80,000 years ago - I know, like what?!?! 

http://www.livescience.com/1626-80-000-year-beads-shed-light-early-culture.html

I'm turning next to the Neolithic Age (5000 years or older) - 

http://www.ancientbead.com/neolithic_beads.html

Here's another amazing site with beads from various periods; 

this image depicts beads from ancient Egypt.

 I find these extraordinarily beautiful. 

http://www.oldbeads.com/ancient.html

The preColumbian period features beautiful carved stone beads. 

I love the fantastic shapes: discs, cones, ear spools, 

as well as natural stone and pebble forms.

The last image in this photo depicts one of my favorite colors that

 inspired the name of a color I use in my own work: Yucatan Stone Green.

http://www.oldbeads.com/americas.html

Here's a one of my favorite sites with tons of information about ancient beads:

http://www.ancientbead.com/

This site showcases a fantastic book on old beads 

(which I recently purchased as a used book);

you can peruse samplings of its content here:

http://www.ornamentmagazine.com/collectible-beads-book/collectible-beads-book.php

Another book just posted in a comment on Facebook by Grace Neff:

http://www.amazon.com/Africa-Adorned-Angela-Fisher/dp/0810918234/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336317806&sr=1-7

I could go on - there is an incredible amount of history to discover.

I hope these links will motivate you to explore further!