African Heritage Necklace of silver and "false coral" beads

An African Heritage Necklace designed and created by Alan Donovan of African Heritage. It is made of hollow silver or silver alloy baubles from Lamu (probably originating in Yemen) with “False Coral” beads from Nigeria. In the old Kingdom of Benin, coral was the bead used on all royal regalia and was reserved only for the royalty on penalty of death, unless presented to commoners in a “ceremony of the beads” similar to knighthood in Europe. Thus commoners created a glass bead that resembled coral which they could wear. Most of these beads are very old as coral beads were first brought in by the Portuguese in 1492.