A Roman Electrum-Glass Bead depicting Harpokrates, Early Roman Imperial Period, ca. 50 BCE – 50 CE

Gold glass beads were a Hellenistic development. They were created by combining drawn tubes of colorless glass with gold or electrum foil. The earliest examples were finished bead by bead.  This flat rectangular example of colorless glass, has rounded edges and corners with a hole pierced vertically through the bead.  On the upper surface is Harpokrates the child in raised relief, facing front, wearing the sidelock of youth, his right arm raised holding a finger to his mouth.  The underside with a pattern of raised dots in horizontal rows. For related examples see Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number: 17.194.509 and Spaer, M., Barag, D., Ornan, T., & Neuhaus, T. (2001), Ancient glass in the Israel Museum: Beads and Other Small Objects, Jerusalem: Israel Museum, p. 137 #234-235.  Gold-glass beads with figurative motifs are rare on the whole, but nonetheless well documented.  Such beads have been found primarily in Egypt and Nubia but also in southern Russia and even Iran.  T