{"id":3105,"date":"2020-03-05T21:29:37","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T21:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/?page_id=3105"},"modified":"2020-04-13T09:25:08","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T09:25:08","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"

The beads used in SISKA COLLECTION are old – varying from antique to vintage. The majority of the beads are \u2018African trade beads\u2019. The history of trade beads dates back to the 16th<\/sup> century, when Europeans arrived on the West coast of Africa to exploit the continents rich resources of gold, palm oil, ivory, spices and slaves.\u00a0 During the 18th<\/sup> century trade intensified and the demand for glass beads from Europe, mostly Venice but also other places like Bohemia and the Netherlands grew. This trade lasted well into the 20th<\/sup> century and literally tons of glass beads were poured into the African continent each year.<\/p>

Despite the heavy import during the past 500 years the beads do not exist in abundance today. Often hours of search in a shop hidden away in the alleyways of the bazaar results in less than a handful. And despite the fact that only few are looking for such old beads, the shop owners know of their worth. They know that they are rare and the best of them know the history and often have a keen interest in giving them a new life.<\/p>

Determining the specific age and time of production for each bead is difficult, as the designs often continued for many years. Sometimes it\u2019s possible to identify earlier beads in a production of one design, as is the case with Cornaline d\u2019Aleppo <\/em>or Chevron<\/em>beads, but often one is left with an estimate based on either known catalogues i.e. Moses Lewin Levin, a British merchant operating from 1839-1913, or similar documented factory inventories, other times the method used to create the bead, wound or drawn, the size of the whole or the shape of the facets can be used as a guideline for an estimate on age.<\/p>

Not all beads are identifiable; some necklaces have beads that I have not been able to track down \u2013 I know that they are old, sometimes I can tell they must be from a specific region, but am unable to find documentation \u2013 and thus the hunt for their story continues with their new owners.<\/p>

Similarly, whereas much of the Yemen, Tuareg or Afghan silver is easily identified, many of the smaller silver beads are from various parts of the world.<\/p>

A few words on the beads and their appearance: <\/p>

As the beads are old and have been worn and many travelled over three continents – some have even been dug out of the ground \u2013 they bear witness to their age. Depending on their condition I clean them very gently, the silver is only cleaned lightly if necessary.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The beads used in SISKA COLLECTION are old – varying from antique to vintage. The majority of the beads are \u2018African trade beads\u2019. The history of trade beads dates back to the 16th century, when Europeans arrived on the West coast of Africa to exploit the continents rich resources of gold, palm oil, ivory, spices […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3105","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskacollection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}