ABSTRACT
F ew records on pearl culturing remain, with the Chinese invention the most significant among them. In the twelfth century (A.D.), the Chinese made tiny carved images of Buddha and cemented them inside freshly carved mussels; after several months, a deposit of nacre covered the whole image (Figure 1). Strictly speaking, this is not a true pearl but a part of the nacre of a shell. This technique has been superseded by the modern method of hemispherical "Mabe" pearl culturing.
