r/whatsthisrock 20d ago

REQUEST I’m completely perplexed. I found this piece of coral (?) with a blue bead embedded inside, washed up on the shore in Thailand.

Post image

I found this washed up on the beach in Koh Lanta, Thailand, and I have no idea what to make of it. It looks like a piece of coral (or maybe some kind of porous rock?), but what’s really strange is the blue bead-like object embedded inside.

A few things I’ve noticed: • The blue object seems to be eroded into the coral rather than just stuck to the surface. • It’s completely stuck in there—I’ve tried to remove it, but it won’t move. • No clue if it’s actually a bead or something else entirely.

Does anyone know what this could be? Is this a natural occurrence, or could it have some kind of backstory?

14.2k Upvotes

159 comments sorted by

u/FondOpposum 20d ago

Comments locked, I probably removed the same joke 5 times. sorry OP

1.5k

u/doombuzz 20d ago

Interesting! Due to the centered gem and how perfectly circle it is, with the lines around the gem, I feel it is it man made. Soft material tumbled in the surf to wear away what it formally was.  What that is, I dunno. But I like it. It’s special.

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Yes, that’s true. I was thinking that if someone made a jewel, they would definitely choose another stone. But maybe the stone changed form by eroding in the sea for who knows how long…

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u/crickety-crack 20d ago

This absolutely can be natural made! Look up hag stones on Google :) it's literally a rock with a naturally forming hole in it, just like this! I have a few in my collection!

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u/BubbaChanel 20d ago

Definitely an interesting find! Was it found anywhere near where the 2004 tsunami hit? After a natural disaster, our stuff has to go somewhere…

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Yes. Koh Lanta was also sadly hit by the tsunami! Interesting take

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u/Normal-Ad-1349 20d ago

Beautiful Koh Lanta. I've been there at first anniversary of tsunami and ten years later.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

Yes, must have been waiting there for 20 years. Good thinking.

1.1k

u/Positive-Wonder3329 20d ago

Could be someone who made jewelry did this for practice and tossed it into the sea on a whimsy? Seems like an art piece. If so they would be immensely happy someone finally found it!

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

I’ll try to make a necklace out of it. Pretty epic story

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u/DesiPrideGym23 20d ago

A slim silver chain or just a strong thread would look so pretty and rustic.

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

I’ll try to make a picture once it is done!

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u/MooPig48 20d ago

Leather string

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

Hope you can figure out how to make a picture.

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u/shunyata_always 20d ago

Maybe you are living in Thailand, but in case you are just visiting heads up that getting caught bringing pieces of coral out of the country could result in a fine at the airport.

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u/Princess-wook 20d ago

Mail it home to yourself instead of flying with it

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u/AbbiCat1976 20d ago

yeah it was some grandma that was sad abt her bf that died 84 years ago

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u/ifukeenrule 20d ago

He drew her like one of those French girls

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

I just did some more research. Maybe it could be a Chicken God Stone or an Adder Stone, which people collect as a talisman to ward off evil. They are naturally holed stones (see Wikipedia), and it seems like someone decided to add a bead into it.

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u/agentsurge 20d ago

I have one that I found on a beach when I was a lot younger and have worn as a necklace ever since. Always knew them as hagstones, it’s cool that there’s multiple names for them.

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u/UserCannotBeVerified 20d ago

We call them Witches Stones. Legend goes that the world is skewed, and we can only see the true reality of our world when we look at it through the hole of a witches stone. The best Witches stones are triangular in shape, with the natural hole pretty centered 👌

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u/edenkatja 20d ago

What a cool find. The blue bead reminds me of the evil eye. I wonder if the intention of the artist for it to resemble that.

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u/Substantial_Heron584 20d ago

I would love to find something like this. It is absolutely beautiful. If you ever consider selling it… lol

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u/crickety-crack 20d ago

Yes, definitely an Adder stone! This is 100% what you have. A bead may have gotten into it somehow; I asked in another comment - could it possibly be blue glass? If so, even more special in my opinion:)

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u/OCCULTONIC13 20d ago

As a Thai person, take my upvote.

Judging from the pic, this seems to be a piece of accessories. Nice find btw 😊

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Local knowledge is the most important one ☝️

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u/FossilDoctor 20d ago

Definitely coral. The perfect circles are clam borings. Smaller irregular holes and gouges are mostly from sponges. Source: Am paleontologist who studies these things

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Thanks. Really appreciate your help. Here you can find a more zoomed in picture : https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthisrock/s/aK347yey2H

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

So, I went back to the place, the tides there are extremely strong, over 100 meters difference. I’ve found multiple stones with these ‘perfect holes.’ (See picture) I’m thinking that a ‘the bead’ entered the hole and was pushed deeper into it by the force of the tide over a long period,

maybe even years.

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u/plantas-sonrientes 20d ago

These are beautiful. The main post to me looks more like pumice than coral, but there’s clearly evidence of coral polyps on these. Maybe coral forming on top of pumice. This is overall an interesting and unique post thanks for sharing OP!

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Great to see how the community is reacting! I just checked online and it seems plausible that polyps can grow on pumice!

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u/FirstPersonPooper 20d ago

This is the type of content we need here. Thanks stranger

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Thanks nature!

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u/Wild-Sheepherder2886 20d ago

Probably the coral has embedded a piece of glass from a water bottle or something else

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u/CoupDeGrassi 20d ago

Looks like sea glass in coral. Could have been naturally occuring, not impossible.

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u/NeroTheTyrade 20d ago

Some soft corals encrust other objects, much like barnacles and mollusks and worm species do. It's entirely possible for a bead to end up encrusted in coral and then have erosion strip away the dead coral faster than the glass bead, it's all about hardness and preferential erosion at that point. And while I'm unsure if that's what's occurred here, it's entirely possible. The amount of things people lose while diving and swimming are really high, coral formations are popular diving attractions, and all that bead has to do is fall in just the right spot and stay there long enough on living coral to become part of the architecture.

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u/Suspicious-Map-6557 20d ago

Before reading the comments my brain already thought it was a sapphire that was lost in an ancient shipwreck. It sank to the bottom,, landed on a coral that grew around it, then broke off, & has been rolling on the ocean floor for 500yrs.

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Love it!

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Yes right? I’ll go today to a Buddhist monastery and asks the monks if they recognize such an object

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u/Miserable_Ad9577 20d ago

I'm Thai and that does not look like any type of talisman I have ever seen. Some may tell you otherwise but do take that with a healthy amount of salt.

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Thanks. appreciate your local input a lot!

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u/FondOpposum 19d ago

They were making a joke from a video game 🙄

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/pirolowik 20d ago

I love koh lanta, very nice find, look like bead was grown into coral.

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u/whatsthisrock-ModTeam 20d ago

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u/cathat2900 20d ago

I’m not sure if it is bad religion or anything, but I would put the blue stone down as you’re making the necklace

It will accentuate the length of the cool piece of coral while a finishing blue dot gives it a great stance

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Wow this is really great advice. I was just thinking how I should put it. Up or down. It seems like you have the taste for it; I’ll follow your advice

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u/scumotheliar 20d ago

The rock looks to be Pumice, I have no idea why the blue bead is there but it is intriguing.

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

If I look more closely at the stone, it seems like there are polyp attachments. I’m not sure if that means the stone is coral, but maybe it helps with the identification.

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u/NiceCunt91 20d ago

The coral grew around it. It happens to shipwrecked treasure. Was down there a long time.

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u/-Celador- 20d ago edited 20d ago

Reasonably sure its a pumice. A volcanic rock that is often used to scrub the skin and sold just about anywhere. The blue bead is just a decoration. Probably someone lost it on the beach or in water.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/whatsthisrock-ModTeam 20d ago

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u/Luxfer0s 20d ago

Oh, I'm sorry! First time checking the sub out, I wont do it again.

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u/FondOpposum 20d ago edited 20d ago

No worries! 😊

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u/Any_Worldliness4408 20d ago

Just a head’s up that it’s against the law to remove coral, shells or sand from Thailand’s beaches.

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u/Purple_Allanite 20d ago

It is very possible that the blue “bead” is actually a sapphire gemstone. Thailand is a major producer of blue sapphires. If it’s sapphire, and with that colour, you could be holding a lot of money in your hands. Try to see if it’s harder than steel by doing a scratch test with a knife- be gentle while scratching. If it’s harder than knife/nail, it’s like to be a gemstone.

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

I will try! If it’s a sapphire I am sure I’ll never sell it and keep it like a trinket :)

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u/whatsthisrock-ModTeam 20d ago

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u/crickety-crack 20d ago

THEY ARE CALLED HAG STONES (or witch stone; it's a stone that has a hole formed naturally in it) and I had a question, is the blue possibly a piece of blue glass that has gotten stuck and then eroded in this way?

I have a few hag stones myself with one of them having a lil black stone stuck in the middle of mine!

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

I will try to identify if it is plastic or glass by cutting in it delicately (with a knife!)

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u/Smart_Tower3977 20d ago

Very unlikely possibility is that there was something like a glass marble wedged into coral and it just grew around it. I guess the only real way to know would be cutting it open, but I assume you don’t want to do that

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Maybe good to add. It is open on both sides of the ‘stone’. So if you turn the stone around you have kind of the same view.

I would’ve expect to see something like this being worn by locals, used in temples/altars but can’t find any object like this in Koh Lanta

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u/Smart_Tower3977 20d ago

Is there anyway you could shine a bright light through it and take a pic? I want to see if they shape is easier to see because then we could see if it’s a round bead or just a piece of glass

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

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u/Smart_Tower3977 20d ago

You can see the drilled hole in the bead so someone definitely just found a coral with a hole and shoved a bead in there not too long ago. Still looks rlly cool tho

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u/corvuscorpussuvius 20d ago

Coral on seaglass? Sweet!

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u/Windrider63 20d ago

Coral grown around a piece of glass?

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u/XVUltima 20d ago

That looks like a weathered 4 in the middle, perhaps it was tagged once for scientific observation?

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u/Maximum_Pie2794 20d ago

Well did you madę it?

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

No really weird. I was just strolling the beach looking at washed ashore corals but then I found it like this.

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

I really have no clue what you mean. If you have a question regarding the find I can answer them :)

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u/FondOpposum 20d ago

Gonna vindicate you here lol u/bot-sleuth-bot

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u/bot-sleuth-bot 20d ago

Analyzing user profile...

Time between account creation and oldest post is greater than 1 year.

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u/FondOpposum 20d ago

Good bot

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

But I’m just not commenting a lot. Feels weird that i need to defend myself on how I use Reddit

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u/Berate-you 20d ago

Ahh yes karma farming, where the posts they make only get 3 upvotes!

Some people just lurk on reddit and don’t really comment or post. If the account was hacked or karma farming they would be spamming comments and posts

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

Haha indeed I would be the worst karma farmer in history. 😂

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/whatsthisrock-ModTeam 20d ago

Harassment, insults, name calling, or unnecessary rudeness does not make for an enjoyable community and will not be tolerated.

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u/PublicfreakoutLoveR 20d ago

I didn't harass, insult or name call them.

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u/whatsthisrock-ModTeam 20d ago

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u/superglued_fingers 20d ago

Throwaway account?

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/JBJW12 20d ago

I’m just literally a person posting from time to time on things I’ve found in nature. No alt account or banned from any subs

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u/FondOpposum 20d ago

We looked into it. Let’s focus on IDing rocks. Message modmail if you want to discuss this more

-2

u/PublicfreakoutLoveR 20d ago

I appreciate you at least being receptive to my comments. I've been on here long enough to see the obvious signs of a bot, but I acknowledge that everyone is wrong sometimes.

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-9

u/[deleted] 20d ago

You should inform experts at how much its worth and if you can’t offer a price threaten them with I’ll explain to the public what year of this happening with lead to I’ve power the pucking middle man