A NECKLACE WITH FOURTEEN AGATE AND CARNELIAN BEADS, PYU, 9TH - 10TH CENTURYPyu city-states. Of tubular, biconical, and globular form, etched with pentagons, lines, and other geometric patterns. Four stones of opaque black color, one of translucent reddish amber, the remaining of a pale gray and brown color with bands of light gray and white.Provenance: From the collection of Paolo Bertuzzi (1943-2022), who was a fashion stylist from Bologna, Italy. He was the son of Enrichetta Bertuzzi, founder of Hettabretz, a noted Italian fashionpany with customers such as the Rothschild family, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor. Paolo Bertuzzi later took over his mother’s business and designed exclusive pieces, some of which were exhibited in the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, USA. He was also an avid collector of antiques for more than 60 years. His collection includes both archaic and contemporary art, and he edited two important books about Asian art, Goa Made - An Archaeological Discovery, about a large-scale archaeological project carried out with the Italian and Indonesian governments, and Majapahit, Masterpieces from a Forgotten Kingdom.Condition: Good condition with some wear, minuscule chips, and natural fissures.Weight: 27.6 gDimensions: Length 30.8 cm (the necklace) and 2.1 cm (the largest bead)Etched carnelian beads were first produced in the Indus Valley around the middle of the third millennium BC. Trade with Mesopotamia during this period probably sparked their local production. They then spread across the world, with archaeological examples found in various places, such as Myanmar, China, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, and Russia. Their shapes, sizes and etched patterns are very diverse, and their wide geographical distribution is striking evidence of their ubiquity.Literatureparison:For a discussion of Pyu beads with related examples, see Elizabeth Moore and Terence Tan, Eyes on the Past: Samon and Pyu Beads in Myanmar, Arts of Asia, vol. 38, no. 1, January-February 2008, p. 134-141. See also Terence Tan, The Journey through Beads: from Prehistory to the Pyu States in Myanmar, Arts of Southeast Asia, vol. 2, no. 1, January-February 2021.