Old Dzi from 2500BC - 600AD
Price: 800 USD
Only 5 Pcs Available
Only 5 Pcs Available
dZi
(pronounced zee, and spelt with a small d and large Z) or more
correctly, gZi beads come from the central Asian region, and are usually
found in an area ranging from Afghanistan, Iran, Tibet, India,
Pakistan, Nepal, Burma and Thailand. They come in many shapes, sizes and
forms, from tiny etched carnelians to huge multi eyed and striped dZi.
The photos in this collection are beads that I have personally collected in that part of Asia over the last 33 years.
When
I first started collecting dZi, you could only find genuine, original
beads, 1000's of years old, or obvious copies and fakes not even made
from agate, but usually bone or glass, and often quite old in
themselves, but there was no mistaking the real from the copy. In recent
times however the market has been inundated by so-called "middle
period" or "antique" 100, 200 or 500 year old dZi which the sellers are
claiming to be genuine. This is simply not true. I will state
categorically here and now for the record as far as Tibetan dZi is
concerned: "There Is No Middle Period!" If there had
been, then these beads would have been around in the 70's and 80's when I
was there, but they only started appearing in the 90's when the fakes
started appearing on the market, and I think that it is no coincidence.
No Tibetan I have spoken to had ever heard of these so-called middle
period beads before the 90's, so I think you can safely say they are
just modern fakes being sold with a lie to increase profits.
POWER of dzi
As to questions about the power of the beads this is a very subjective matter, and I personally do not believe that they have any intrinsic power specifically bestowed by any Gods or supernatural powers that be, as some Tibetans do, but having said that, I always wear them for protection when I am travelling. However, I do believe in the power of the mind, and quantum physics tells us that the universe only exists as we percieve it because of our beliefs, and those beliefs actually change how the atoms behave and interact with us. Therefore the beads could contain the power that has been bestowed upon them by many previous generations, and that power may be retained in the atoms of the stone and benefit subsequent wearers. So the older the bead and the more people who have held beliefs in a bead's ability to protect them, the more powerful the bead becomes. So maybe it is a mixture of both natural science and belief, working side by side. Then new beads will have very little, if any, power at all, and none of it protective. Beads that have been deliberately faked to look old might even contain negative energies. This is all very much conjecture, and everybody will have their own idea based on their own system of belief.
HOW WAS DZI MADE?
The great mystery of old dZi and etched carnelians is how they managed to get the markings on the surface without breaking or cracking the stone. The Silica family, of which chalcedony, agate and carnelian are a part, is particularly suseptible to heat, which will crack or even shatter the stone. The technique of how to heat it without damaging it was only discovered in recent times, using sophisticated technology which entails heating the stone in a vacuum. As agate is porous, there is air and moisture within the stone which when heated, expands and causes it to crack. In a vacuum the air has been removed so greatly reduces the chance of the stone cracking when heated. This technology was not around 100 years ago in remote
The great mystery of old dZi and etched carnelians is how they managed to get the markings on the surface without breaking or cracking the stone. The Silica family, of which chalcedony, agate and carnelian are a part, is particularly suseptible to heat, which will crack or even shatter the stone. The technique of how to heat it without damaging it was only discovered in recent times, using sophisticated technology which entails heating the stone in a vacuum. As agate is porous, there is air and moisture within the stone which when heated, expands and causes it to crack. In a vacuum the air has been removed so greatly reduces the chance of the stone cracking when heated. This technology was not around 100 years ago in remote
Tibet, nor indeed was it around many of thousands of years ago, hence the mystery of how they were made.
