Natural Fossilized Coral & Vintage African Brass Bead Choker Necklace

Fossil Coral Necklace:

Wow!! Exotic and ethnic and elegant, this fantastic one-of-a-kind choker necklace is a stunning combination of fossilized coral and a vintage artisan African brass focal bead. Simple, but bold this necklace will make a statement as well as being a conversation starter!

Coral is the outside skeleton of tiny ocean animals called polyps, which live in colonies attached to hard underwater surfaces. When alive, polyps combine their own carbon dioxide with the lime in warm seawater to form a limestone-like hard surface, or coral.

Agatized coral (or fossilized coral) occurs when silica in the ocean water hardens, replacing the limy corals with a form of quartz known as chalcedony. This is a long process taking 20-30 million years.

The African brass bead in this necklace was individually handmade in a small Ashanti village near Kumasi, Ghana called Krofrom using traditional and very time intensive methods. The method is called “lost wax” and it consists of weaving wax "wires" into a form, investing them in clay, burning out the wax and pouring molten brass into the mold. Each mold is hand made making each bead slightly different from the next. This amazing miniature work of art is vintage and is overflowing with African character and soul.

This necklace is 17" in length and has a 4" extender chain.