Featured Older Chinese? Multi-Knotted Ivory Beads on Silk?

It's almost 20" long (each side). There are 11 of those remarkable woven knots, an' 46 of the smaller locator/guard knots.
Pic 3 & 9 show several points of extreme wear in the cord, an' there's a repair in a brighter blue thread in pic 8. The bead-pairs are subtly graduated from ~1 1/8" x ~3/8" to ~7/8" x ~5/16"; the whole string weighs ~15 1/2 grams.
Is it Chinese? Is it as old as it seems to me (late 19th C to ~1920)? Is the form indicative of special significance? Last BNL: what are those woven knots called, an' what is their significance, if any?
Thanks for lookin'!

 

That's flapper length. Looks more like bone than ivory. Let's see what others think.

Debora

 

The beads look more like bone to me.

 

Yup...I can accept that.

 

Ditto.

Yes, it is. Probably Cantonese.

Eternal knots or endless knots. Originally a Buddhist symbol of the interconnectedness of wisdom and compassion, but in Chinese folk belief it also symbolizes longevity and eternity.

 

Very nice -- I wonder whether there was once something attached to the knot that is where a pendant would be? In any case, it is lovely.

 

I think there could have been a carved bone pendant.

 

I was thinking that, too. Or possibly a pendant made of something else that coordinated with the look of the necklace.

 

Yes...the way the cord is frayed at that end does suggest something may have been suspended there at one time.