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154

String: Banded Agate Beads

Currency:USD Category:Antiques / Asian Antiques Start Price:750.00 USD Estimated At:1,000.00 - 1,500.00 USD
String: Banded Agate Beads
Online Auction only, with advance bids accepted at iCollector and at the Gallery. No live bidding
in the Gallery, and tie bids go to the earliest bidder. All proceeds will go 100% to the World Peace Foundation Building Fund of Hadley, MA.
Used as Prayer Beads by Buddhist practitioners, these may have been made during the pre-Buddhist Han period, but kept or found and later adopted for a Rosary during the Six Dynasties or thereabouts. 27 pieces, as purchased from a seller who apparently did not know of their history or that this number was special (4 times around the 27-piece string = the 108 prayers of the Buddhist canon that every Chinese or Tibetan believer recited each morning). Clearly intentionally matched and a lovely and important group. SEE: "SPARKLING SPLENDORS, by Roger CHOW, as cited above, Pages 188 and especially 189, where they are listed as Han (206BC-220AD). The surface erosion, size, Agate type and matching of the beads, almost exactly mirrors this grouping. A highly important early Buddhist artifact set.
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