Once the world moved past the ‘prehistoric’ times (for lack of a better description), beads were then made of clay, soapstone, and glass. Each have distinct, ancient origins that span different continents and eras of human history.
Whilst bone, horn, shells, nuts, seeds etc were still used, and are still popular today, the making of more modern beads took mankind on another journey.
Clay Beads:
Clay beads were originally made around 9,000 to 7,000 BCE. Early civilizations in Mesopotamia and the Middle East first crafted beads from rudimentary, sun-dried, or low-fired clay.
By 3,500 BCE, Egyptians created "faience," a specialized clay bead coated in a glossy, vitreous glaze. Bead Shack has great examples of faience beads in the form of Mummy Beads, which were used by the poorer Egyptians to dress their mummies for burial. Sometimes hundreds of these strands were put into one grave.
Faience:
Egypt may have invented faience, but it’s production spread over much of the ancient world. Faience beads were made in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Persia (modern Iran), Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria, Hungary and England. Further East, the Indus Valley of Pakistan/India and China were faience makers.
The spread of glass technology put an end to faience production in most places. India was still making faience beads 2000 years ago, long after glass had become commonplace. Faience was made in Egypt and Iran in the Middle Ages, mostly for animals to protect them against the Evil Eye.
Today only one traditional faience making centre exists, in the holy city of Qon, Iran, where ‘donkey beads’ are produced. Click here to see Bead Shack’s authentic donkey beads from Qom Early in the 1900s the villagers of Qom in Egypt, foiled by the government in their occupation as tomb robbers of the nearly Valley of the Kings, started making faience. Their beads and other objects are sold, often as genuine antiquities, to unsuspecting tourists. Fortunately, modern Egyptian faience does not use quartz, but steatite, resulting in an opaque faience, as opposed to quartz faience which is slightly translucent.
Soapstone:
Soapstone Beads were made as early as 6,000 to 5,000 years ago during the Middle Archaic period. Because soapstone (steatite) is incredibly soft and easy to carve, ancient cultures worldwide—including Indigenous groups in North America and societies in the Indus Valley—utilized it for intricate, early jewelry and effigy beads. Bead Shack has some great examples of vintage carved soapstone Scarab beads from Egypt.
Glass:
The earliest true glass beads were originally from Egypt and Mesopotamia (now known as Iraq/Syria) around 1500BCE.
India by 400BCE
Africa in 9th Century
Italy (Venice/Murano) by 13th century
Czech Republic (Bohemia) in 16th century
Glass beads today are manufactured in many countries, but the authentic highly revered beads mainly come from Czech Republic, Murano and even Japan.
And now! We can buy beads from all around the world in abundance and still, man is adorning themselves and their surroundings with all types of beads!
Of course we need to include all of modern day methods, but there are far too many to cover here in depth. From the top of my head, thinking about what we have at Bead Shack, we have Phenolic Amber, Lucite, Bakelite, Bone, Horn, Shell, Porcelain & Ceramic, Crystal (handmade as well as natural from the earth), Silicone, Wood, Acrylic, Plastic, Fimo clay, Metalised Plastic, Cinnabar, Resin, carved stone beads and all sorts of metal beads pendants etc, The list is almost endless!
This information has been drawn from both the internet and my own memories of things I have learned about beads in general (been doing this a really long time!)