Strand of Beads, Czechia

It looks like rock crystal. It is glass, and it has been cut to fool you.

This strand of beads is carved Czech glass from Czechia, dating to the 18th or 19th century. Czech glassmakers produced beads in great numbers for export, and they travelled far along trade routes, including into Africa. Clear glass like this could stand in for costlier carved stone. The beads are oval and faceted, cloudy white with an icy translucence, and they are twisted here into a thick rope. Fine ridges run across many of them. Thirteen inches long.

Glass has a long record of getting into better company than it was born to.