A pair of greenstone and carnelian necklaces

Trapped in the house during the dark lock down days of Covid pandemic I raked up this pair of striking necklaces to reminisce happier times. They were sold to me some 20 years ago as Pyu dynasty but maybe later. Similar  strands of carnelian and green cylinders are shown in Elizabeth Moore's paper Carnelians in Myanmar Prehistoric to early Chinese Beads which make me hopeful that these go as far back as Pyu dynasty (around 2nd century BC - 11th century AD)

The beads are a mix of elongated green beads and carnelians interspersed with carnelian buttons and beads. There is also a centrepiece of an etched carnelian pendant on left necklace.

2 striking strands of carnelian and greenstone

Slim and slender green beads some are glass and some
 stone,  hard to tell apart

Equally striking are these elongated carnelian beads

Like the green beads these carnelian cylinders are
slim and slender and well made.

Carnelian buttons

There is also one button made of glass

Glass not carnelian

The etched carnelian pendant also makes a nice centrepiece

Close up of centrepiece pendant

Welcome to Lunar New Year of the Pig 2019

Although Pigs are not one of my favourite collectibles, nevertheless I will still uphold the good ole lunar new year tradition and dig up some odds and ends to celebrate Pig Year 2019

To my surprise I found quite a few, 12 to be exact of pigs made from jade, agate, glass and pottery. Their vintage range from ancient time to present day. Of the 12 pigs below 11 are from Chinese culture with one odd one out,. Can anyone guess which one?😊

12 little piggies

I will describe and enlarge each pig in detail. Starting with the oldest first, below is the little piggie from Xizhou dynasty (1046-771BC) see related link https://baiyu-quietmuse.blogspot.com/2017/05/in-praise-of-ancient-chinese-ornaments.html

2cm x 1cm

Next in order of age are 4 pigs made from jade and agate shown below maybe from China's Han dynasty (206BC -220AD) as they exhibit the characteristics and carving styles of Han dynasty pigs. The Han pigs are long and lank carved with the Han ba-dao (8 cut) style. The top two pigs are carved from jade and bottom  two are made from agate. The bottom two are also beads as the have perforations.

Han dynasty pigs made from jade and agate

A pottery pig from Tang dynasty (618-906AD) is shown in following picture.

Pottery pig from Tang dynasty

5 modern day pigs made from jade, glass and crystal  shown below

These 5 are from the 20th century

And so .... reader you guessed it the odd one out is the agate little pig from Myanmar's Pyu Dynasty (around 2nd century BC -11th century AD)

Snout nose pig from Pyu dynasty

The ancient piggies are a bit sombre coloured and so to add de rigueur festive color to this post are 3 little pinkie piggy ang pows.

Happy Lunar New Year of the Pig 2019