Ancient Tairona Crystal Beads with Smoky Quartz and Bird Pendant, 22k Gold Clasp

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Ancient Tairona Crystal Beads with Smoky Quartz and Bird Pendant, 22k Gold Clasp

About the Item

Forty-six rock crystal barrel shaped beads with a smoky quartz pendant in the form of a bird and two long smoky quartz tube beads said to be from the Tairona people of Colombia, South America. The forms of the bird are abstracted and seem to depict the bird sitting with legs drawn under. This could be a depiction of a nesting bird, or perhaps a water bird floating on the surface of the water. The beads and pendants were all shaped without the use of metal tools, the holes being drilled with bow drills and abrasives, the forms being cut with string saws and abrasives and then ground and polished. The distance from the bird's beak to the tail (when standing straight) is 2.75 cm. Measured straight from tip to tail it is 3.28 cm. It is 8.9 mm in width at the widest point of the body. The diameter of the drill hole is 3 mm. The rock crystal beads are mostly rounded barrel shapes but there are a few that are distinctly bi-conical. They vary in length from 6 mm to 9 mm and are 8.5 mm - 9 mm in width. The drill hole diameters are around 2.5 mm – 3 mm. The two smoky quartz tube beads are slightly dissimilar: One is 4.45 cm in length with a width of 1 cm. The other is 4.2 cm in length and slightly flared – 8.5 mm in width on one end and 1.4 cm in width on the other. The flared bead is drilled straight through from the widest end to the smaller end. The hole starts with a diameter of 4.5 mm and ends with a diameter of 2.4 mm. The straight tube is drilled from each end with the holes meeting in the center. These hole diameters are 5 mm on each end. The necklace is 18 5/8 inches (47.5 cm) in length. The necklace weighs 61.5 grams.