NEW! Beautiful Santo Domingo-Kewa graduating turquoise and melon shell heishi necklace with custom barrel end tips. The artist has hand cut each heishi bead from raw melon shell and turquoise nugget stones. They also hand make the barrel tips making the necklace fully hand made from beginning to end. The main heishi bead is the melon shell and they have highlighted it with blue turquoise. The focal row of turquoise has small olive shell spacers to allow ease to bend.  All of the heishi beads run from 6mm up to the largest at 12 millimeter in diameter. The ends are decoratively stamped sterling silver barrel tips with a sterling hook attached to one end and an eye on other end.

The necklace measures 20" long end to end with the wearable length of 9 3/4". It weighs a healthy 70.9 grams (2.50 ounces) and has been hallmarked on both barrel tips. One is marked ML stacked and the other is marked LL stacked by husband and wife Marvin and Lillie Lovato. Very nice, tedious, and time consuming craftsmanship! Can be worn as is or add a large bale pendant! $259.95

Heishe or heishi (pronounced "hee shee") are small disc- or tube-shaped beads made of organic shells or ground and polished stones. They come from the Kewa Pueblo People (formerly Santo Domingo Pueblo) of New Mexico, before the use of metals in jewelry by that people. The name is the word for shell bead in the Eastern Keresan language of the Santo Domingo Indians. The oldest specimens of heishe date back to around 6000 BCE, although the same technique was used in northern Africa 30,000 years ago, using ostrich eggshell. Modern heishe beads are commonly mechanically mass-produced; however, some artists still hand make beads. The beads are hand-chipped, with holes drilled through their centers using pointed stones.  (wikipedia)