Etched carnelian beads
Long red beads drilled through with stone drills and etched with white designs, prized from the Indus to Ur.
Indus bead-makers heated carnelian to deepen its red, shaped long barrel beads up to twelve centimetres long, and drilled them through with special stone drills, a process that could take many days for a single bead. Some they etched with white lines using an alkaline paste fired onto the stone.
Such beads were among the Indus civilisation's most valuable exports. They have been found in the royal cemetery of Ur in Mesopotamia and across the Gulf and Iran.
Bead-makers in Khambhat in Gujarat still use similar methods today.
More from the Indus
The world's first great public water tank, sealed with bitumen on the citadel of Mohenjo-daro.
A bearded man in a trefoil-patterned cloak, carved in steatite: the face of the Indus civilisation.
A bronze girl, ten centimetres tall, standing with hand on hip, her arm covered in bangles.
A horned figure seated cross-legged among wild animals: the most debated image of the Indus.
The commonest Indus seal: a one-horned bull before a ritual stand, with a line of script.
Polished cubes of chert made to one standard from the Ravi to the Arabian Sea.
Two small stone torsos from Harappa so lifelike that their date is still argued.
Little bullock carts, whistles, rattles and animals with nodding heads: the playthings of Indus children.