The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-12-27
Strings of Beads Almost as Old
 as the Human Race
FINE EGYPTIAN NECKLACE
Display of Specimens of Ancient Art In New York Causes Much Inter- est-Prominent Women Con
 nected With the Exhibit
Erom the New York Tribune.

Veau represented by number of speci- mens from the atelier of J. Walter Law renee and Brainerd B. Thresaer of Day ton, O., but there is also q collection of articles designed and wrought by Miss Luther Mrs Klapp, Miss Mary E. Pear son end Mrs. Henry Butterworth; there are over three hundred rnss from the collection of Alexander ". Drake, a case of crosses. rosafies and necklaces sent by Mrs. William NJ Chase and a large number of Egyptian and early Greek bead necklaces from the collections of Mrs. Garrett Chatlield Pier and Mrs Franke II. Bosworth It will be seen shat the eX- hibition strikes pretty broad samut.
 Beads are as old as the human race, said Mrs Pier, iii speaking of her neck laees. afhey were made almost before in- struments of warfare. To co back in his tory as far as one can and pluck out of the bosom of time these articles of personal adornment Is the charming thing about il to me. You find the same impulse in the beads of Egypt and in Che beads ef our North American Indians These little disks of the most heavenly blae'-here Mrs. Pier took up string of Liliputan quoits about ne-third of an inch in diam- eter and of almost falry-iike thnuess- these little disks are cut precisely as our Indians cut their wampum, in the days before the Yankee trader began manH featuring it fer them on Staten Island. That is what interests me so in beads their unlversaity and their cleseness to the very springs of our race life.'
 Jewels of Another Age.
 Mrs. Pier has spent the last three or four winters in Cairo, and some of the 1 necklaces in her collection were brought | 10 her with the fresh earth still clingng to them After washing one new acqui- sition Mrs. Pier says her hands were per fumed for days with the spices and oint- ments which still clung to the beads. And that necklace was 8o00 years old.
 Among the particularly interesting pieces in Mrs Piers collection is a neck lace composed entirely of small fruits and flowers These were made only in one place, Tel-el-Amarna, under one king, | Ihu-en-Aten. The necklace is over 2900 years old. These exquisite little flowers and fruits are of glazed pottery and were cast in mods Perhaps the prettiest thing about them is the fact that each l flower and each fruit was nodded 90 per- fectIy that if has been worked out and identified by Percy Newhury by means of funeral wreaths. carvings and other representations of the fauna of ancient Egypt.
 The necklace in the photograph is com posed of large, irregular shaped flat beads. opaque and of rich orange-pinll 1 color. They are very rare and date from 1562-122S B. C. famous necklace which | was bought in London Is Tn the form of a little close fringe composed of red sard pendants and white glass amnhorae alter mating. A handsome gold bulla forms the pendant. This necklace was found at Asinoe, and says Mrs, Pier. 'fs charm ing to wear" One very valuable string of beads is of laps lazul blue paste and gold It is thought to be from : royal tomb.
 Cylindrical Beads.
 The earliest beads were made in the form of long, slender cylinders. A neck lace that dates from nearly 300 B. c. shows a succession of Iapis lazull cylin- ders with three pendants in the front. One is an amulet in the shape of a heart, one is q "Tat" amulet, meaning stability and the center pendant is scarab, the most important and sacred of all, stand ing as 1t does for the immortality of the soul A particularly attractive neck lace, dating from the days of the Ptole- mys, Is made up of little square field spar. Near the front are four groups ot little flat gold beads-double beads, they are. growing side by side like so many Siamese twins. The effect of this neck lace is a double string of oblong beads caught together by the square beads and the little double gold beads
 Some of these strings of beads are just as they came from the grave save for little cleaning, while others have been re- strung. Some, like the necklace of blue disks, have been bought bead by bead. The blue disks were rare and expensive. A few of the necklaces have been built up by Mrs. Pier-recomposed, one might almost say, as, for example, the Greek necklace of carbunele beads, to which Mrs. Pier has added as pendants long and gold and carbuncle earrings of the same period and workmanship.
 Popularity of Necklaces.
 These necklaces are all the time being discovered" said Mrs. Pier The Arabs turn them up every day The reason why the soil of Egypt fairly teens with them is that the ancient Egyptian woman wore necklace upon necklace round her neck and festooned across her corsage. When she died and was embalmed all her neck laces were again placed on her person ip readiness for the great day of her resur- reetion. When the tombs and graves are ransacked scores of these necklaces are found in them.
 Tt is amazing what fine effects the Egyptians managed to produce from the limited material at their disposal They had no diamonds, rubies, sapphires or any of the gems known to the modern lapi- dary. They had to produce their effects with paste or pottery and stones which are now relegated to third or fourth place in the category of jewels. They had hematite, or iron, fedspar. carnelian, sard laps lazuli, amethyst, root of emer- ald or emerald matrix, and blue and green pottery-that was about all But l think the delightful things conceived and carried out in these unpropitious me. diums goes to prove that we moderns are mistaken in placing so much reliance on diamonds and the other precious stones, that beauty in iewery isn't all a mere matter of glitter and fash"
 From the beads of ptolemaic beles to the new art buckles and brooches in the ether cases may not be so far a cry as 1t seems MT. Lawrence at least has frank ly availed himself of the art of the an cients as expressed in the glassware. Some of his most striking effects have been produced by combining fragments of the lovely irldescent glass found in Jerusalem, Cyprus and Asia Minor, and known variousy as Cyprian or Phoeni- elan glass. with gold and sometimes with precious or semi-precious stones.
 l
 Shot Himself With Rifle.