After my last post I started doing some more digging around online. The first thing I discovered is that Fustat beads are also known as Morfia or Morphia beads.
I’m finding the most wonderful resources! One of which is AfricanTradeBeads.com – I was so excited to see all the detailed images of beads that they have online. I sent an email off and heard back from David Nevill who very kindly said that I could use some on my blog. This site has ancient beads of all kinds for sale and also has some wonderful reference charts.
Thank you so much David for letting me use these images!
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- Morfia bead showing clearly the arrangement of colours in the twisted canes of glass that makes up the zig zag pattern.
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- Same bead shown from the end, here you can notice that the twisted canes were created around a transparent glass core.
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- Even though the patterns look a little different you can notice that the colour arrangement is the same in this bead as in the first – red, yellow, green, yellow, red, white, green, white.
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- Bead two shown from the end.
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- This style has cane made of concentric circles as well as the twisted cane!
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- It’s interesting to look at the end of this bead because you can really see where the glass has been ground down to create a smooth end.
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- Two more examples of the Fustat, Morfia, Morphia beads.
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- Fustat/Morfia bead
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- Latest beads after etching the glass
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- Twisted cane for Morfia beads
It seems as though the red, yellow, green, yellow, red, white, green (or is it black?), white was a standard colour combination for these beads, sometimes the shades vary, or the thickness of the stripes but the order of colours stays fairly consistant. Check out Africantradebeads.com wonderful reference page for LOTS more examples – I tell you, it has me drooling with excitement!
Looking at the ends of the beads and seeing the sizes listed leads me to estimate that the holes running through them are about 4-5mm. That means I can use a larger mandrel when recreating these!
Here’s a picture of my latest beads – see if you can pick out the different styles, the Morfia beads, Warring States and Islamic Folded are all represented in this image -
Latest beads after etching the glass
I was thrilled with one of my first attempts -
Fustat/Morfia bead
I thought that the ‘green’ was actually black and created my twisted cane with that.
For my second attempt I used green in the cane -
Twisted cane for Morfia beads
Doesn’t look too bad eh? EXCEPT if you work with glass you will know that green and yellow do not like each other very much. They bleed into each other and that is what happened when I made beads with this cane.
You can see the smudging between the green and yellow.
For my next attempt I tried to use transparent green, and if you look closely at the most recent beads above you’ll see that the transparent green ended up being really transparent when the twisted cane was pulled. So! That still needs some refinement.
These historical beads typically have six or eight strips of cane around them. Most of mine have more, perhaps I’m using thinner cane or perhaps I’m not flattening my cane out as much as it would have been. I am also making a base bead and laying the cane on top of it, this is not the way the original beads would have been made. I don’t have a grinder so am unable to grind the ends down, instead I shape them in the flame.
All in all, I think they are pretty fair representations of the original beads, they are certainly a LOT of fun and a challenge to make. I have to be constantly aware of which twisted cane I am picking up – is it the right colour? Is the twist running the right way?
I’ll be making more of these, even though they are time consuming, probably close to 30 minutes per bead, I think the end result is definitely worth it!
Have you got an ancient bead style that you’d like to see recreated? I have a growing list of things I want to try – beads I never knew existed until I started searching around. Another great resouce for bead styles is TheBeadDatabase.org — SO much to learn! Not enough hours in the day!!
You have done an amazing amount of research and I find it very interesting. Your doing a wonderful job of recreating the Morfia bead.
I love seeing your work. Some days I just hop by, but today I just had to stop and say hi.
I have got old beads named “mirror” beads. They were manufactured in eastern Europe or central Asiatic region. These beads were formed from a premanufactored disk with a concentric trail pattern.
Have recreated such beads?
regards
Xian
Hi Xian, no I haven’t seen any ‘mirror’ beads – this is something new to me — I’ll have to look them up and see if it is something I can do, they sound intriguing! Thank you for commenting
D
What you tried is indeed interesting. Do you own actual ancient beads yourself, as samples ?
Phil.
Hi Phil, thank you for commenting! No, I don’t own any ancient beads, I wish I did — my research on them is pretty much all web based at the moment. Hopefully that will change as I carry on.
Hello,
Do you Know how are realized the ancient beads named ” folded beads?
There is some on my site http://www.african-trade-beads.com in the category “Roman-Islamic”
Rois11: rois12: rois13 for example
christian
Hi Christian – I do not think this is what these beads were called when they were originally made. This is a more modern name for them and has to do with the way the pattern is created by folding the hot glass to create the intricate patterns we see in this style.