Loose Beads

The caravan leaves Timbuktu at dawn, and somewhere in the baggage a string of glass has crossed the Sahara for the third time.

Loose beads in glass, stone, metal and shell: Venetian and Bohemian trade beads carried to West Africa, Roman glass, eye agates and carnelian from India and the Himalaya, Indonesian glass, Ethiopian silver, Tuareg and Berber metal beads, Naga glass and shell. Traded across the Sahara, the Indian Ocean and the Silk Road, beads served as money, dowry and protection as well as ornament. Eye agates, with their banded white circles, were thought to ward off harm.

Heap them in a wooden bowl. Centuries of handling show in the luster.

Currency you could wear, and nobody ever had to count it twice.