Ceramic Beads, which is considered as an element of fashion, have been very popular and widely used nowadays in necklaces, earrings, pendants and so on. They are made with a mixture of clay and other chemical substances through firing at an extremely high temperature. Then artisans add designs and colors to them to make them look delicate and individual.
Ceramic Beads are made in different countries with distinctive patterns, which have evolved over the centuries. Ceramic Beads which are probably first made when Neolithic man started to mould utensils, now range from simple lumps of baked clay to the finest porcelain worked with extreme skill. Then we’ll introduce various ceramic beads made from different countries.
Egyptian Beads Faience or Egyptian paste, an early ceramic, was popular among the ancient Egyptians. It’s a mixture of powdered clays and lime, soda and silica sand. Strands of grass dipped in a liquid mixture of clay, quartz sand and glaze, was burned away during firing to leave a hole. The process to make it was probably discovered first in Mesopotamia and then imported to Egypt. But, it was the Egyptians who made it their own art form. Faience necklaces are still on sale in the markets of Cairo.
African Clay Beads Africans wore beads to communicate cultural values in a symbolic language that expressed rank, religion, politics, and artistic attitudes. Africa has a long history of making pottery beads. The simplest clay beads are shaped by rolling between the fingers. Before the beads are left out in the sun to harden or are baked in a fire, simple patterns are scratched on them with a fingernail.
English Ceramic Beads English Ceramic Beads are famous for their best quality. The best quality clay, as used for many years by English porcelain makers in Stoke-on-Trent, is made into top grade ceramic beads. Exquisite beads, individually made by English ceramicist Elizabeth Turrell from blank, white or colored porcelain, are high fired to 1260℃.
Chinese Porcelain Beads
Porcelain Beads is a type of clay mixture used in pottery and other ceramics, which is hard, white, translucent clay, fired at high temperatures. Chinese porcelain beads, which present Oriental feeling and sensibility, are hand-decorated in traditional styles, using enamel colors and gilded outlines. The Chinese first used cobalt oxide to produce blue-colored ceramics in the Tang dynasty, establishing a long and classic blue and white porcelain tradition.
(The above porcelain beads pictures are offered by Daning Jewelry, for more information please click here ) |