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Dimensions
Length:
90mmDepth:
80mmHeight:
35mmWeight:
469g
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Neolithic Stone Age bead maker - PH0052 | ||
| £180.00 | |||
Description
Important Neolithic Transitional Bead Maker
Important and rare artefact. Once used for manufacturing and shaping beads through two separate processes. One side has a shallow U shaped groove (which is consistent with bead making) approximately 8mm in width and 69mm in length. Verso side is a pallet type dish for grinding.
the fascinating aspect of this artefact is that the user combined two uses into one tool, reducing the hardship of a nomadic lifestyle when carrying around more than one implement.
Condition Report
Extremely fine stone artefact. The surface worked to a high standard in the typical Saharan piqu?/em> technique, shaping and forming this pleasing stone artefact. Both the grinding and grooved faces show a well worn history of use as does the rest of the stone, possibly the hands of generational use.Historical Provenance
Saharan Neolithic artefacts traded through Africa towards more affluent North Africa.since the first quarter of the twentieth century when a great interest was resurrected in the ancient world, predominantly by the new finds of Tutankhamen by Howard Carter in the valley of the kings, Egypt, collectors have been sourcing these fine New stone age objects. Many of these tools collected in the twentieth century ended up in collections in Europe. this object is of this lineage and formed part of the collection of a European gentleman.
In the last twenty five years or so a new wave of enthusiasm has seen prices of artefacts steadily rise, this trend will continue as supply diminishes, through trading restrictions and particularly as many borders which once freely allowed nomadic movements are more and more heavily policed, restricting historically naturalistic nomadic trading further, coupled with less open site finds.
Many of these items were collected in open sites. This means found strewn across the open Saharan regions. As nomads traversed the Saharan routes, these objects revealed themselves through erosion and through storms and shifting sands.
Many items have been traded from as far south as Niger, Mali, Senegal and Mauritania, also from the more eastern North African states, Algeria, ,Tunisia and of course Egypt.
Geoffrey Moorhouse traversed the Sahara desert in 1972/3 from the coast of Mauritania to Egypt on foot [3,600 miles], on camel with one guide, an immense feat. On route his book the fearful Void tells of sightings of great Neolithic stone implements scattering the surface of the inner dessert, where the trading routes had been neglected for hundreds of years.