Antique Five Stripe Chung Dzi, 48.2×13.1mm, warm terracotta reddish-brown agate (At-070622-5SChung)

We never retouch our photos. What you see is exactly what you will receive.

On this bead, the black takes more space than the brown — and that inversion of the expected proportion is the first thing the photographs tell you.

In most striped Chung dzi the ground dominates and the stripes punctuate it. Here the five pitch-black acid-etched bands are wide enough that the warm terracotta reddish-brown ground between them reads as the narrower element — a series of compressed ground intervals between broad black registers. The visual weight sits in the stripes, not the field. The result is a bead that reads as predominantly dark from a distance and reveals its warm ground colour only as you bring it closer, or as the light catches the semi-gloss surface of the reddish-brown zones.

The ground itself is a warm terracotta reddish-brown natural agate — not the vivid orange-red of the collection's ancient carnelian pieces, and not a dark chocolate-brown. It occupies a register that is distinctly warm and iron-oxide in character, with natural colour variation visible across the surface: the left tip reads as slightly more saturated terracotta-red (confirmed in Image 6), while the central body ground sits at a slightly more muted reddish-brown. Fine natural speckle and age-consistent micro-pitting are visible across the ground zones in close examination — the surface here is semi-gloss to satin, not the mirror-quality gloss of a younger or more heavily polished piece.

The five black stripe bands are acid-etched into the agate ground. They are consistent in their deep pitch-black colour, and while the three central stripes are marginally wider than the outermost bands, the overall impression is of broad, assertive horizontal registers. The stripes carry a slightly higher surface gloss than the ground zones — a characteristic of the etching chemistry interacting differently with the agate surface than the surrounding material. No stripe has degraded or faded; all five read cleanly against the ground.

The body form is an elongated fusiform with a confirmed asymmetric taper. The right end is the blunter end — broader, more rounded, with a small centrally placed drill hole whose interior appears near-dark (Image 5). The left end tapers more acutely to a point, with a drill hole whose interior reads warm reddish-brown, consistent with the agate colour at that tip (Image 6). This asymmetric taper is visible across all four lateral face photographs and is a natural feature of how the bead was shaped from the source material.

This bead must be distinguished from two others in the collection that share the five-stripe count or the Cho technique reference. Ac-061426-5SChung (Ancient Five Stripe Cho Dzi) is an ancient piece (700–1,000 years) using the specialised Cho dzi etching technique — its ground is a milky semi-translucent pale grey-white, its stripes are dark on a light field (colour-inverted relative to this bead), and its surface is mirror-quality gloss. This bead is antique, not ancient; its ground is warm reddish-brown, not pale; its surface is semi-gloss satin; and it carries standard acid etching, not Cho technique. They share a stripe count and nothing else. At-110223-9SBS (Nine Stripe with Bloodspots) has nearly double the stripe count on a pitch-black ground with cinnabar inclusions — a completely different visual and material character.

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The Five Stripe Motif — 瓊珠五線紋

Five is the number of directions in Tibetan cosmological tradition: the four cardinal points plus the centre. A five-stripe Chung dzi (瓊珠五線紋) is understood to align the wearer with all five directions simultaneously — a bead of orientation and completeness. Five stripes are also associated with the five Buddha families of Vajrayana tradition, each embodying a different aspect of enlightened wisdom, and with the five elements that constitute experience: earth, water, fire, wind, and space. In Tibetan and Himalayan collecting communities, the five-stripe bead is regarded as a bead of balance — not the accumulative power of nine, not the directional focus of one, but the centred equilibrium of five, covering every axis at once.

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Motif: Five stripe (五線紋); five pitch-black acid-etched horizontal bands; wide stripe / narrow ground proportion — stripes substantially wider than inter-stripe ground zones; slight width variation (central three wider, outer two marginally narrower)
Length: 48.2mm
Diameter: 13.1mm
Form: Elongated fusiform; asymmetric taper — right end broader and more rounded, left end more acutely tapered; small centrally placed drill holes at both tips
Material: Natural warm terracotta reddish-brown agate with natural colour variation and fine surface speckle; pitch-black acid-etched stripe bands; semi-gloss to satin surface finish
Age Estimate: 300–500 years
Condition: Age-consistent surface micro-pitting across ground zones (disclosed); no chips; no cracks; no medicine digs
Bloodspots: None
Product ID: At-070622-5SChung
Collection: Antique Chung Dzi | Antique Dzi Beads

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You may also like:

• Ancient Five Stripe Cho Dzi 措思天珠 — Ac-061426-5SChung — Pale translucent ground, Cho technique, mirror gloss, 700–1,000 yrs
• Antique Nine Stripe Chung Dzi with Bloodspots — At-110223-9SBS — Pitch-black ground, cinnabar bloodspots, 300–500 yrs
• Antique Seven Stripe Chung Dzi — At-061920-7SChung — Seven stripes, warm honey-brown ground, 200–300 yrs
• Antique Single Stripe Chung Dzi — At-020726-Chung — Natural bicolour agate, no etching, fusiform, ~500 yrs

From the blog:

• What Is a Chung Dzi? Understanding Striped Agate Beads
• How to Identify Genuine Antique Dzi Beads

Five stripes. The black takes more space than the brown, and that is exactly the point.

We never retouch our photos. What you see is exactly what you will receive.

📷 We never retouch our photos. Every bead is photographed exactly as it is. What you see is what you receive.

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