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Comments

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  howah October 30, 2015 at 6:01pm

  Nice dark carnelians with the silver wire visible
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  Thelma October 30, 2015 at 9:11pm

  Howah, I was really interested in your comment about silver wire and need to clarify because I think it is related to a problem I've been discussing recently. By 'silver wire' do you mean the interior marks in the stones, which make the stones look as if they have been drilled. If yes, what is the point of the silver wire? Is it a method of fixing the stone in a bezel? I looked up this feature in the Schletzer's book (p69) where it shows by illustration that stones that have this line through them are made of glass and stones which do not have this feature are carnelians. But maybe this is wrong. Can anyone help......
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  Thelma October 31, 2015 at 11:03am

  The Riddle of the Stones.

  Recently I took a Karakalpak piece to London to be mended. Here is a scene from the restorer's.

  Man-in-Charge: (examining the piece) Interesting stones. What are they?

  Me: (with confidence) They're carnelians.

  MIC: They seem to have been drilled. I wonder why they did that.

  Me: No idea. Maybe it has something to do with fixing them in the bezels.

  MIC: That's odd. The bezels are high enough to retain the stones on their own. (We move on)

  Next day I remember that Schletzer has a chart on stones (part attached). From the chart it appears the stones are glass. I check other pieces and, with embarrassment, scramble an email. 'The stones that are drilled seem to be glass. Hope this helps.'

  But now we know that may not be the end of the story. Yet another email may be needed. The riddle persists. Carnelians or glass? Why were they drilled? Who knows?
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  Peter Hoesli October 31, 2015 at 6:53pm

  Dear Thelma; Many thanks for this interesting posting. Well, I believe that it is more difficult to prepare a glass than a carnelian insert, especially also when taking into consideration that glass can easily split when being drilled (the reason for the glass to be drilled would yet need to be found out - I am really keen to know...). A couple of years ago, I have visited Yemen and went among others also on an excursion into the highlands (well, Sana'a is already located on 2,800 meter altitude). During the afternoon and on our way back to Sana'a, we have made a stop on a panoramic spot. The driver has parked the car on the side of the street, which was carved out of the mountain slope. When getting out of the car, I have noticed funny looking stones on the floor and then inspected the carved out wall of the slope. I found a layer of ca. 15cm full of agate stones, spreading around 1 meter below the actual surface along the entire carved out street of the hill. One could easily remove the agate from the wall. I felt like a child in a toy store and started to collect the agate stones. The others thought that I am nuts collecting stones... Unfortunately, I forgot the bag of my agate beads in the car ... Anyhow, when thinking about this story, there was an abundance of agate stones available, which made them look like regular stones and nobody even bothered about them. I could very well imagine that "exotic" glass would have been more attractive to the people at that time and most probably also more expensive to acquire than agate beads... Food for thought... With kind regards and thanks again Thelma for this interesting posting. I have already copied it out for my reference. Peter
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  Thelma November 1, 2015 at 11:08am

  Dear Peter, I had to smile at the consternation of your companions when you started collecting the agates. But the fact remains... the more you know, the better able you are to identify a good bargain when you find it :)). If you are ever able to find the answer to the riddle of the stones on your necklace, do please let me know.
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  howah November 1, 2015 at 10:05pm

  Hi Thelma,

  I need to take out the Turkoman headdress side pendants in my collection to check if the red stones with the interior marks are glass or carnelian. In my memory the stones seemed to be carnelian. I'm not sure where I got the information from about the stripes in the stones being silver wire.
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  Linda Pastorino December 11, 2015 at 3:47pm

   i have had and seen pieces with silver wire running behind the stones. I can not remember if they were glass or carnelian but that exists within Turkoman jewelry styles. Good question to bring up but i never really thought about that being odd when i had them.. I just knew that it was a type of technique used.