Ancient Agate Beads from Iran, One Banded Clear, One Amethyst Shade, One Eye Bead

[CraftsofthePast]

Ancient Bactrian style beads from ancient sites in what some archeologists call Outer Iran or proto-Iranian Culture. The inhabitants of those sites made this type of beads from about 4,500 years ago to about 3,500 years ago. Collected by a dealer in Iranian antiquities on a trip to Iran some decades ago. Long before he bought them, they may have been found lying on the surface near ruined archeological sites near the Kavir or Lut Deserts in eastern Iran or they had been plundered from those sites. I hand-picked these beads from among the many pounds of such beads in the dealer's shop in New York.