

African Trade Beads: Their 10,000-Year History, (Paperback)
Key item features
- African Trade Beads: Their 10,000-Year History, (Paperback)
- Author: Firefly Books
- ISBN: 9780228105008
- Format: Paperback
- Publication Date: 2024-10-21
- Page Count: 272
Specs
- Book formatPaperback
- Fiction/nonfictionNon-Fiction
- GenreHistory
- Pub date20241021
- Pages272
- Reading levelGeneral
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First made and worn 120,000 years ago, beads were originally made of natural materials -- stones, shells, wood -- and have been used for adornment, currency and burial offerings.
Trade beads of polished stones and shells have a history thousands of years old, but the first glass beads were made in Egypt. They were meant to be cheaper mimics of precious stones. A thriving glass bead manufacturing industry began in Murano (Venice) in 1291, and the trade spread to Holland, Bohemia and Moravia (Czech) and Germany, and traders brought them to Africa to trade for gold, ivory and spices.
To this day, glass beads are prized in West Africa, and the antique beads shown in this book were once very common but are now quite scarce and coveted by collectors around the world.
This beautiful book documents early-style beads made of cowrie shells, semi-precious stones and clay, and then shows in splendid detail hundreds of beads made of glass and other human-made materials that have been made by Europeans and Africans and traded for the last 600 years in Central and East Africa. Each is identified as to its origin and manufacture and approximate date.
Covering shells, "Konon" (glass beads) and some contemporary beads, African Trade Beads' heart is "Konon" or Venetian trade beads that used to be easily found in his home country but are now scarce. Each is from the author's own collection and was obtained from rural Mali -- but they originated in many African countries and hundreds of years of trade brought them in wide ranges and mixtures, instead of their original uniformity.
- African Trade Beads: Their 10,000-Year History, (Paperback)
- Author: Firefly Books
- ISBN: 9780228105008
- Format: Paperback
- Publication Date: 2024-10-21
- Page Count: 272
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Book format
Fiction/nonfiction
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Pub date
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| Book format | PaperbackAfrican Trade Beads: Their 10,000-Year History, (Paperback) | PaperbackAfrican Pharmakon: The Asylum as Shrine from Slavery to the Return, (Paperback) | PaperbackLandscaping Africa: The Politics of Place and Belonging in Senegal, (Paperback) | PaperbackDecolonizing Maasai History: A Path to Indigenous African Futures, (Paperback) | PaperbackAn African People's Quest for Freedom and Justice: A Political History of Eritrea, 1941-1962, (Paperback) | PaperbackA History and Defense of African Slavery, (Paperback) | PaperbackRhodes a Life, (Paperback) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiction/nonfiction | Non-FictionAfrican Trade Beads: Their 10,000-Year History, (Paperback) | Non-FictionAfrican Pharmakon: The Asylum as Shrine from Slavery to the Return, (Paperback) | Non-FictionLandscaping Africa: The Politics of Place and Belonging in Senegal, (Paperback) | Non-FictionDecolonizing Maasai History: A Path to Indigenous African Futures, (Paperback) | Non-FictionAn African People's Quest for Freedom and Justice: A Political History of Eritrea, 1941-1962, (Paperback) | Non-FictionA History and Defense of African Slavery, (Paperback) | Non-FictionRhodes a Life, (Paperback) |
| Genre | HistoryAfrican Trade Beads: Their 10,000-Year History, (Paperback) | HistoryAfrican Pharmakon: The Asylum as Shrine from Slavery to the Return, (Paperback) | HistoryLandscaping Africa: The Politics of Place and Belonging in Senegal, (Paperback) | -Decolonizing Maasai History: A Path to Indigenous African Futures, (Paperback) | HistoryAn African People's Quest for Freedom and Justice: A Political History of Eritrea, 1941-1962, (Paperback) | HistoryA History and Defense of African Slavery, (Paperback) | HistoryRhodes a Life, (Paperback) |
| Pub date | 20241021African Trade Beads: Their 10,000-Year History, (Paperback) | 2025-12-19African Pharmakon: The Asylum as Shrine from Slavery to the Return, (Paperback) | 2026-06-02Landscaping Africa: The Politics of Place and Belonging in Senegal, (Paperback) | 2025-01-23Decolonizing Maasai History: A Path to Indigenous African Futures, (Paperback) | -An African People's Quest for Freedom and Justice: A Political History of Eritrea, 1941-1962, (Paperback) | 1861A History and Defense of African Slavery, (Paperback) | 2022-10-27Rhodes a Life, (Paperback) |
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