Cave 'Pearls'

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Valeria101

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Some folks call them that - 'cave pearls'. They are calcite concretions that somehow are lucky enough to form as free-floating, rotating objects in a saturated solution and end up round (REF). Sometimes perfectly so! It can happen that at some point the round concretions settle down and become embedded in more calcite growth, their shapes dulled and distorted.

Anyhow, these things are rather unusual and quite spectacular to see in their original environment. The reaction is usually 'wow' !

Finding THIS listed today reminded those things.
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Have seen my fair share of these during caving stints back in college vacations... Should have been wise enough to take pictures, I guess :eek:

Below is a more typical array of small 'cave pearls'.
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Who says that bits of info have to be relevant to be fun! :p
 
Now a strand of those would be a unique addition to any pearl collection.

This pool of cave 'pearls' is something else.

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Hope no one gets the idea of a cave pearl strand!

Although a good number of caves have some such formations, it would be a pitty to 'harvest'. It takes centuries and rather idiosincratic conditions for these things to happen. Taken out of the water they are normal white pebbles. Only a section and magnification revels concentric layers, sometimes of different shades - like nacre layers in pearls :cool: (similar mechanical process, methinks).
 
Seriously, I feel like we should have a section of this Website called Valeria101's links. How you come up with the things you do always amazes me.
 
jshepherd said:
Seriously, I feel like we should have a section of this Website called Valeria101's links. How you come up with the things you do always amazes me.
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I agree. Valeria101 keeps surprising me with things I had no idea existed. My ultimate goal is to keep learning until the day I die. If I hang around here, that won't be a problem. :)

Thanks,
Blaire
 
Wasn't Wilma Flintstone the first woman to make Cave Pearls fashionable? I call Valeria my own "little internet search engine."
 

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knotty panda said:
Wasn't Wilma Flintstone the first woman to make Cave Pearls fashionable? I call Valeria my own "little internet search engine."
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You are TOO funny:) Love the picture -- just think how heavy they would be if you translated that to our size in a six pearl necklace!

Cheers,
Blaire
 
GemGeek said:
... just think how heavy they would be if you translated that to our size in a six pearl necklace!
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Gee! Those 'pearls' should be about 5cm long! :eek: ... allowing for uber-large knots/spacers and clasp.

I doubt I'd look as nice as Wilma wearing such monster beads, pearls or no pearls :rolleyes: Can't imagine anyone pulling that sort of thing off, actually. Can you?
 
That too... but that doesn't mean I've got the math right in the previous post either, LOL!

Lets see... neckline is about 35cm (a tight choker length, othing really 'choking' that is). And the beads being large, the length of the strand will end up larger than that to accomodate their diameter. That would give 7.75 cm for bead length (77.5mm x 38.75mm) :eek: assuming 7 beads and a clasp of similar size or 8 claspless beads .... so that three show in a 2D picture on any side of the becklace, like in Wilma's picture. Now, that's assuming a 3D 'Wilma', a 2D cartoon charcater would actually get away with just 3 beads ;) Not exactly wearable in the real world. Unless those were balls of feathers or something! :eek:
 
Man, for pearls like that, does anyone else think Fred was drastically overpaid?:D
 
Hm... not if they were cave pearls (i.e. pebbles, appropriately so), he wasn't !

More seriously, what is the earliest record of pearl use for jewelry? I have seen several strands of natural pearls unearthed while excavating Babylon etc. but haven't taken notes of their dating to keep track. They were in reasonably wearable state too (gray, somewhat different sort of iridescence then you'd expect from 'fresh' pearls, but nothing to frown upon).
 
Hi Ana
Do ask me for a source, but I remember hearing of a strand that is 4,000 years old. I wonder if anyone else remembers that and can guide us to the source?
 
Valeria: How could pearls have been worn prior to a way of drilling them? I can't imagine a way to afix a pearl to anything before having a drill hole to mount it to metal or string. Any thoughts? Were they used as currency? Well, yes, they were, but I mean something more tangible as to value other than bead trading?

No, Salem, I don't think Fred was overpaid. Dinosaur wrangling in quarries in those days was arduous work. He just made it look easy :)
 
How long has mankind has the bow and arrow?

I know that artisans in the prehistoric southwest (far away from any ocean) were drilling seashells with a stick twisted in a bow, long before electricity. Those original heishi have amazingly small holes.

Actually, so were South Americans so it is just a matter of tracing the drilling technology back.
 
I'm talking about before drilling came along, how would they have been worn.
 
First you'd have to have an idea how far back they could drill; drilling could be as old as the pleistocene. The oldest pearls found so far were drilled...... Carved MOP was found in Egypt as far back as 4,500 BC Pearl bearing mollusks were used by Egyptians as early as the 4th millenium, BC - Egyptians do not seem tohave used perls much (Strack p 17)

Read the pages on the Yaqui on Douglas' website. When the Yaquis met the Spaniards the chief was covered with pearls and MOP carvings. The application of same would have been done with pre-Conquest techniques.

Sounds like you have hit on a good project for a PhD
 
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Hi Ana
Good find and probably the answer to knotty's question...
1st answer: A pearl (or other object) was worn in a shell to hold it....
just turn the one on the right upside down, It is perfect for holding a tiny tresure, like a pearl.

2nd answer: they glued it to something, like a shell. I am pretty sure they had glue from sap, eggs, or horns and hooves.....

The flint instrument used to make holes was probably smaller and more pointy. The article indicates it was a flint tool similar to the one shown and chips often come off the larger tool that are quite sharp and pointy.

Just a guess but coincidently my BA is in Anthropology.....



Here is a similar article with more pictures and similar shell beads from Africa.

I just googled "oldest pearls" and my article on the pearl guide forum came up first. I think I will have to revise it. There have been several earlier discoveries published since I wrote that.....

OK now what kind of thread did they use? And what kind of knots?
 
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Aren't kots somewhat recent practice ? (decades old)

An article cited on a nother thread here cites the oldest record of pearls in jewelry. Coincidence ? :)

LINK

"The National Museum of Bahrain exhibits a pearl that was found in a burial ground dating back to around 2000 BC ... probably the first evidence of pearl jewellery. More evidence of the brilliance of the gem is seen at the Louvre Museum in Paris which exhibits a pearl necklace dating back to 600BC."

The ones I saw in Berlin were more recent; around 300 BC. They were spndly rice shaped, slightly larger than the fattest rice seed you might imagine, with relatively large, funnel shaped holes typical for the early unstable drills. Obviusly all necklaces are redesigned using whatever cmponents within reasonable distance in the ground, so... who knows how they might have been strung originally. Those larger holes make me think of some serious ancient beading thread!
 
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