A slender, semi-clear, sapphire-colored (blue) 14-sided bead. This is a high-quality, faceted Roman bead with sharp faceting, made by drawing molten glass wrapped around a core rod to create a tube, pressing it on a marver to form a rectangular shape, chamfering the four corners from both sides of the perforation to create triangles, and drawing beautiful rhombuses on the sides. It is a 14-sided bead with 12 sides and two perforations. Upon acquisition, it was explained that this bead was excavated in Afghanistan and produced around the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD. The body of this item shows numerous air bubbles, indicating that the glass was manufactured and the bead was made at a relatively low melting temperature. Small silvering is visible in the small holes of the air bubbles, and some of the edges of the facets also shine silver. Due to the drawing method of forming, many faint streaks parallel to the holes are visible on the sides of the body, and several thin streaks that shine silver look like small streams. The yellowish substance near the perforated surface is thought to have been caused by the silvering mixing with oil, etc. (photos 8-9, and after photo 13). The drilled holes are large, the thickness around the holes is about 2 mm, and the sides have high-quality cuts, but there are also chips on the edges of the facets due to years of use, which also shine silver. In the Roman period, semi-clear glass, dark green and blue-green glass were colored using copper(II) oxide (CuO) in an oxidized state, and copper(I) oxide (Cu2O) and copper sulfide (CuS) resulted in blue. The natural aquamarine color of glass becomes darker when 2%–13% copper is added, and copper turns the semi-transparent blue into a dark, deep green. This method was used in the Roman period and also in Mesopotamia around the 14th century BC. The Bead Timeline lists green and blue tube beads and slender, biconical Roman glass beads around the 2nd century AD, and from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, sharply faceted cubic beads made of natural stones such as carnelian and lapis lazuli are listed, possibly as beads imported from southern India. Based on the existence of related beads, it is considered possible that glass faceted beads were produced. Slender, opaque (semi-clear) blue, faceted beads have been excavated from sites near Amman, the capital of Jordan, mainly with jewelry from around the 4th-6th centuries AD, and similar examples are widely found in the lower Danube region, Romania, and Ukraine in the 5th-6th centuries AD. This item is large and can be used as a pendant top, allowing you to enjoy the texture of the sapphire-colored glass from 2000 years ago. Size: Height approx. 14 mm, Width 7.5 mm, Hole diameter approx. 3.5 mm