Arkaui stone beads

Serpentine or Arkaui stone necklace –Mauritania– (origin: Timia, Niger)

When Hachim showed us this necklace of heavy serpentine stones, he surprised us greatly when he said that it came from Timia, because Timia is a town perched in the black mountains of Air and there is no serpentine there. Then we read that in the time of Herodotus the Garamantes caravanners transported, among many other goods, green stones extracted in Assaba (southern Mauritania) to exchange them for skins and metals.

Some call these stones Arkauis, others call them Garamantic emeralds. In any case, the Assaba serpentines had already been found in Timbuktu (Mali), Djanet (Algeria), Ghadamés (Libya) or the Fezzan (Libya), and now they came from Timia, the valley to which the ancient inhabitants of the region moved. mythical Assodé. That city, looted and abandoned at the beginning of the 20th century, had been a crossroads and an obligatory stop for camel caravans.

Hachim's necklace has 53 beads of different sizes and shapes strung on 92 cm cotton thread.

Weight: 980g