Mad in Pursuit Notebook
Ancient Civilization on the Face of a Bead
A follow-up from my What Possessed You? entry (18 Feb 2015)
I'm looking back to a winter night in 2015, in front of the TV, when I was casually examining a strand of ancient beads through the new macro lens of my camera.
The lens caught what looked like human-made scratches on a rock crystal bead. I held the tiny 1/2" bead with a tweezers and struggled to get image in focus.
Then suddenly I saw it!
It was a human figure, his face in profile, his legs moving, a leafy plant in one hand, and a stick or knife in the other. I went crazy. Unbelievable! I wanted Jim to see it, but it was like pointing out features on the face of Mars through a telescope to someone not quite as zoomed in as you.
I was overcome by the sensation of "oneness," of harmony with the universe, of finally seeing through the jumbled blur of everyday life. A message had emerged through the static. It was like that starry-night ability to fine-tune an old AM radio to a station thousands of miles away. Except that in this case, it was thousands of years away. Time collapsed.
I studied the figure intensely, trying to decode it. With its flat back and rounded carved face, it looked like a seal you'd press into wax. But it was so tiny!
Since that night, I have longed to discover the origin of my magical bead. Was it a Sumerian, Anatolian, Egyptian? Nothing quite matched up.
But finally, I have homed in on the likely source: the ancient Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE), which encompassed modern Iran, Iraq, and parts of Central Asia. Gemini helped me find ancient stamp seals carved with similar tools and techniques at a couple of auction sites.
The Sasanians led the last non-Islamic empire in a region that connected the Roman/Byzantine Empire (their rival) with the sprawling dynasties of India and China. They controlled the most lucrative trade routes in the world—the fabled silk roads—and grew rich through taxation and bureaucratic management of goods and services in transit.
My bead was a personal identifier—a passport or password. Pressed into a tiny lump of clay (a bulla), its "signature" facilitated travel and legal transactions. The figure carved into the stone seems to be wearing a kulaf, a headdress typical of Sasanian officials or noblemen. The Sasanians were Zoroastrians. The apparent bundle of of twigs (a barsom) my figure is holding likely signifies his participation in a sacred ritual.
We moderns value immense, immersive experiences, but sometimes (to paraphrase William Blake) we can hold a civilization in the palm of our hands.
22 March 2026
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