Pitt Rivers Museum Anthropology and World Archaology

 

Africa

 

Ostrich egg-shell beads

Sudan or Egypt

 

Excavated by Francis Llewellyn Griffith in 1913

Given to the Museum in 1921

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Ostrich egg-shell beads, Sudan or Egypt
The earliest known African beads are 10,000 year-old examples made from ostrich egg shells. In East Africa, such shells are still used today for bead-making today. This string of ostrich egg-shell beads was found in a grave, around the waist of a skeleton. These beads date from 700–500 BC.

View database record 1921.75.93