Archaeology Brown Bag Lecture Series

Curved or "comma-shaped" beads, known as gogok in the Korean peninsula & magatama in the Japanese archipelago were worn & utilized by high-ranking individuals for ideological, political & economic reasons for millennia. This talk will look at how their shape, styles, materials & manufacturing methods changed over time. Although their exact meaning has been long forgotten, it's significant that the peoples of Korea & Japan placed such importance on curved beads that they used them for millennia.