驃族天珠 500 BC - 100 BC

驃珠100BC~840BC

驃珠之所以得名，乃因為此類黑地白色圖案的小珠子，經常在驃族遺址中被發現，從考古材料知悉驃族歷史，約公元前100年至公元840年，而《新唐書》中亦有「貞元中年」驃國入唐進貢的記載。故驃族在公元前100年移居緬甸，建國應在公元800年之前。如以驃族的歷史計算，從驃族進入緬甸起，直到建立國家及至被緬甸人同化，驃珠的年代是在公元前100年至公元840年。

查證，「驃珠」實際出現的歷史，早在驃族之前經已存在。高法和比蓮娜(Ian C.Glover & Berenice Bellina) 在《東南亞鑲蝕紅玉髓珠》(Alkaline Etched Beads in Southeast Asia)文中所見，緬甸出土的記錄中載有紅玉髓及驃珠的資料，時約公元前500至公元276年的鐵器時代。與此同期，學者史特葛慈(Stargardt)利用「熱釋光測器」，測量到驃珠的年份為公元前800至400年。

---摘自《天珠探秘叢書》﹙3﹚〈尋源、斷代與分期〉
 

Pyu beads (100BC~840BC)

From the reference record of tribute Pyu made to Zhenyuan era (785AD to 805AD) during the Middle Tang Dynasty, the account of early Pyu tribe migration in about 100BC to Burma, and many other archaeological excavation specimens, historians interpreted that Pyu tribes began to form their confederation shortly after moving to the then Northern Burma and the formation should be much earlier than 800BC. From Burma migration, settling into the prosperity of their self-governing confederation, devastating raid causing collapse by NanZhou, to assimilation to Burmese community, the history of Pyu tribes spanned from around 100BC to 840AD.

Despite its name, Pyu beads (special type of small white-on-black etched agate beads) had existed much earlier than the Pyu tribes. According to what Ian C. Glover and Berenice Bellina had written in their Alkaline Etched Beads in Southeast Asia, one specimen from the Iron Age burial site in Taugthaman near Mandalay of Myanmar (Burma) is a black spherical bead with parallel circling white lines, similar to a collection of excavation examples (without provenance) found in a major Iron Age cemetery site in Thailand, Ban Don Ta Phet. Most of these Iron Age specimens Glover discovered in BDTP site have white lines etched on artificially blackened spherical or cylindrical agate beads; rather fewer are etched carnelians. Surprisingly, a further analysis from Stargardt using thermo-luminescence dates reported the Taugthaman specimen was around 800-400BC, earlier than Glover and Bellina had expected. It’s not too far from the dating 500BC by Dougald Reilly in his study of Iron Ages in Thailand mentioned in Vol.39 of the Asian Perspective in 2001. That said, the history of Pyu beads should at least date back to 500BC or even earlier.

----Exploring Mystic dZi Series (3)– Origination, Chronology and Classification