Kiffa beads are rare powder glass beads named after the Mauritanian city
of Kiffa, where French ethnologist R.Mauny documented them first in
1949.
Kiffa
beads represent one of the highest levels of artistic skill and
ingenuity in beadmaking, being manufactured with the simplest materials
and tools available - pulverized European glass beads or fragments of
them, bottle glass, pottery shards, tin cans, twigs, steel needles, some
gum arabic, and open fires. The term Kiffa bead, named after one of the
old bead making centres of Kiffa in Mauritania, was coined by United
States bead collectors during the 1980s.
According to Peter
Francis, Jr., the making of powder glass beads in West Africa may date
back a few hundred years, and to possibly 1200 CE in Mauritania. Maure
powder glass beads are believed to copy older, Islamic beads, of the
type made in Fustat and elsewhere. Although the making of Mauritanian
powder glass beads appears to be an ancient tradition, no archaeological
evidence to establish their age has been found to date.
From Wikipedia
