GLASS BEADS
Cultural History,
Technology, Experiment and Analogy
Studies in Technology and Culture vol.2
Historical - Archaeological Experimental Centre :
LEJRE
GLASS BEADS
GLASS BEADS
Cultural History,
Technology, Experiment and Analogy
16. -18. October 1992 at the Historical-Archaelogical
Edited by Marianne Rasmussen, Ulla Lund Hansen and Ulf NSsman.
Studies in Technology and Culture vol.2,1995
Historical - Archaeological Experimental Centre
Lejre 1995
5
Contents	Theme 2: Beads - methods of analysis Julian Henderson: The scientific analysis of glass beads	67 Barbara Sasse and Claudia Theune: Merovingian glass beads - a classifications! model	75 Katalin Szilagyi, Judit Nagy-Balogh
Preface	7	and Kamilla G. Solymos: Similar beads of type 60 from
Ulf Ndsman: Introduction	9	ninth-century Magna Hungaria and tenth-century Hungary	83 Valentin A. Galibin:
Theme 1: Beads - a culture historical perspective	Data from the analysis of ancient glass and the problems of interpreting them	89
Lars G. Henricson: Broken glass beakers re-used as glass beads	13	Per Ethelberg: The glass beads from
Per 0. Thomsen: The question of beadmaking in the late Roman Iron Age at Lundeborg, Denmark	19	the Skovgfirde cemetery	91 Theme 3: Beads - experiment
Inge Elisabeth Oildag: Glass beads in Roman Iron Age Denmark	25	and analogy Onder Kiiciikerman:
Evalds Mugurevich: Finds of glass beads from the tenth to thirteenth centuries in Latvia	33	Anatolian glass beads	.	97 Torben Sode: Purdalpur. a glass bead-making village in Northern India	103
Veronica Tatton-Brown: Some Greek and Roman pendants and beads in the British Museum	37	Evgenij A. Rjabinin and Valentin A. Galibin: New data concerning early glass beadmaking in Ladoga
Helena Ranta: Glass beads from	(in the 8th to 10th centuries A.D.)	109 Maibritt Joensson and Pete Hunner:
Johan Callmer: The influx of Oriental beads into Europe during the 8th century A.D	49	Rosemarie Lierke, Frederick Birkhill and Pavel Molnar: Experimental reproduction of spiral beads	117
Torben Sode: The traditional use of magic glass beads in the Islamic World	55	Julian Henderson: A response to R. Lierke's paper	121
Keld Hansen: Beads in the Arctic	59	Tine Gam Aschenbrenner: Should we believe in experiments?	123
7
Preface
The Historical-Archaeological Experimental Centre
was host to the Nordic Glass Bead Seminar from
the 16th - 18th October 1992. This was a pleasant
opportunity to serve one of our tasks: to stimulate
the exchange of research results on technology and
culture.
Being a centre for experiments in archaeology we
often focus on the technological aspects of material
culture. Though important, these are just part of a
whole and lose meaning if not related to their cul-
tural and historical context.
It is our hope that this book will display the vari-
ety of problems, analysis and synthesis that mate-
rial culture can stand at the centre of as an object of
detailed study - a comprehensive study of beads from
all angles.
Many people were involved in the seminar as well
as the publication of the seminar proceedings.
Conservator Torben Sode and Director at the Royal
Danish Academy of Art Helge Brinch Madsen were
the promoters of the seminar. Former Research
Director at the Centre Bente Draiby was the seminar
leader and its splendid organizer together with other
members of the staff at the Centre. Pete Hunner
and Mai-Britt Jonsson, Baltic Sea Glass, contributed
to the good atmosphere of the seminar with
interesting demonstrations. Former Director of the
Centre, Morten Meldgaard and Mag.art. Birger
Storgaard, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology,
University of Copenhagen, took the first steps in
organizing the papers for publication. Dr. John
Hines, Cardiff, corrected the English. Dr. Ulla Lund
Hansen, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology,
University of Copenhagen and Dr. Ulf Nasman,
Department of Archaeology, University of Arhus,
edited the different papers in a wise and critical
manner. With care and patience Soren Riberholdt
has brought the manuscript to the final print. The
Historical-Archaeological Experimental Centre
extents its warmest thanks to them all.
However, neither the seminar nor the publication
could have been realized without financial support
The Historical-Archaeological Experimental Cen-
tre wishes to express its gratitude to the Nordic
Foundation for Culture, the Danish Culture Minis-
try, and the International Office of the Danish Edu-
cational Ministry for making the seminar and the
participation of East European researchers possible.
We also wish to thank the Danish Research Coun-
cil for the Humanities, the Hielmstierne-Rosen-
croneske Stiftelse, and the Landsdommer V. Gieses
Legat for their generous support to this book.
Lejre november 1995
Marianne Rasmussen
9
INTRODUCTION	reasonably good bead typochronologies, the bead material can be used at its full potential. A number of papers contribute to the development of a European bead typochronology: Inge Elisabeth Oildag presents beads of the Roman Iron Age in Denmark, Evalds Mugurevich high medieval beads
By UlfNasman	found in Latvia, and Helena Ranta surveys glass beads from Iron Age Finland. A computerised classification of the rich material of Merovingian beads is presented by Claudia Theune and Barbara The craft The production of glass beads are touch upon in many papers. Veronica Tatton-Brown gives a fascinating view of skilled craftsmen in her survey of Greek and Roman pendants. Per Thomsen treats the possible bead making at Lundeborg, Funen, in the Late Roman Iron Age, and Evgenij Rjabinin and Valentin Galibin present evidence of bead-making in the early Russian town Staraja Ladoga. The
W eads have until recently been a neglected artefact type in European archaeology. This -Д—/has certainly been unfortunate since their abundance and the endless variation in shape, colour and decoration make glass beads ideal for both qualitative and quantitative typochronological analysis of production, distribution, and con- sumption. Thus the study of beads has the potential and medieval archaeology, as has been revealed by a number of recent studies. So the initiative by Torben Sode to arrange an international glass bead seminar was welcomed, in- deed, and his suggestion that the workshop be held at the Historical-Archaeological Experimental Cen- tre at Lejre was quite natural, considering the long experience of experimental archaeology held by that The subheading of the seminar was cultural his- tory, technology, experiment and ana-logy. The con- tributions of the invited scholars certainly illustrated all these aspects. I will, however, place the papers under four other headings:	scientific analysis of glass metal used in bead making have already given results of considerable im- portance, as illustrated by Julian Henderson and Valentin Galibin in their papers. Onder Kii^iikerman and Torben Sode illustrate bead-making by giving a survey of bead workshops that still work within a traditional technology in Anatolia and India. The potential of experimental archaeology is illuminated by the craftsmen Maibritt Jonsson and Pete Hunner in their paper on gold-foil beads. Rosemarie Lierke et al. demonstrate in their paper and Julian Henderson in his reply how important it is to understand the properties of the glass metal when trying to reconstruct the technology and making of complicated beads, in casu spiral decorated beads. Tine Gam Aschenbrenner, herself an archaeologist, gives in her paper a good illustration of the difficulties archaeologists will meet when trying to make glass beads themselves. Her study is based on the important workshop debris from Danish eighth century emporium at Ribe. The use of beads in social display Per Ethelberg can on the basis of rich inhumations
Bead typochronology Of course chronology is still a basic question since the typochronological knowledge about beads are unsatisfactory in many regions and many periods. Not until all regions and all periods are covered by	discuss the arrangement of beads in strings and of course a better record of how beads were stringed in burials would give much new information about their social significance. Lars Henricson gives an idea of the value of small bits of glass in prehistoric society in a contribution on prehistoric recycling:
10 Class Beads
sherds of broken glass vessels re-used as beads.
Widening the archaeologists’ views on the use of
glass beads, Torben Sode writes a note on the magic
of glass beads in the Islamic world. Another
ethnological contribution is given by Keld Hansen
in his paper on Inuit use of beads in Greenland.
Trade in beads
Johan Callmer’s work of bead trade is among the
most wide-ranging and he demonstrates convin-
cingly the relevance of bead studies when writing
megahistory on trade and exchange in prehistoric
Europe. Katalin Szilagyi et al. discuss the di-
stribution of a specific bead type in east Europe. The
theme trade and exchange is of course touched upon
by many (Oildag, Thomsen, Mugurevics, Hen-
derson, etc.).
In my opinion some of the most promising av-
enues of archaeological artefact studies are at
present offered by bead studies: the organisation of
qualified crafts and the distribution of the products
in regional as well as superregional trade networks,
as well as the use of material culture in social dis-
play.
After the seminar we went home with notes and
drawings in our luggage, but also with unfinished
images left in our heads. There they will hopefully
bear fruit as new ideas in the years to come. The
creative international atmosphere of the Nordic
Glass Bead seminar at the Historical-Archaeologi-
cal Experimental Centre at Lejre will, now the pro-
ceedings are published, contribute to the progress
of glass bead studies and thus the development of
archaeological study of prehistoric, protohistoric as
well as historic societies.
Theme 1:
Beads - a culture historical perspective
13
BROKEN GLASS
BEAKERS RE-
USED AS GLASS
BEADS
By Lars G. Henricson
The re-use of broken glass beakers in various
secondary contexts is a well known
phenomenon in the Late Roman Period and
Late Iron Age of Scandinavia (NAsman 1984:25).
Unworked glass or broken beakers were of value
because they were in demand as raw material.
Newly discovered or re-discovered finds from
Sweden have provided new insights into the signifi-
cance of broken glass as a raw material resource.
The first of these finds will be only briefly described
here. It consists of a hoard of metal finger rings from
the Sigtuna excavations 1988-90. The majority of the
25 or so rings included in the find have, as far as
can be discerned, settings manufactured from bro-
ken light green or olive green, but even some dark
violet, glass vessels. The hoard has a preliminary
stratigraphical dating to the end of the 11th century
(Henricson 1993b:495).
Of particular interest for the discussions concern-
ing glass beads are previously unknown, or little
known, finds from two Late Iron Age graves in
Uppland, Eastern Central Sweden, and Anger-
manland in Northern Sweden, respectively.
A female burial from Salum, TorsAker parish,
Angermanland (SHM 764), contained grave furni-
ture dating from the late 9th to early 10th century.
The dating artefacts included carnelian and rock
crystal beads, an equal-armed brooch, and an oval
brooch of type P 42, earlier documented (ATA; Ar-
chives of the National Museum of Antiquities;
TorsAker parish, Angermanland). The brooch,
which regrettably is now missing, is to be dated to
the early phases of the Birka period Qansson
1985:136 & 174).
One of the “beads” in the set can be identified as
a sherd with an everted and hollow rim. Continu-
ous use over a long period of time has produced an
entirely matt surface and fine traces of wear on all
external surfaces, especially those that are broken
(fig. 1). Its yellow trail ornamentation, shape and
design are identical to those on the well-known and
complete bowl with reticella ornament from boat-
grave no. 6 of the Valsgarde cemetery (Arwidsson
1932:261ff, Pl. XIV; 1942:69ff, Abb. 57 & colour plate
30; Nasman 1986:77f & 80 ff). Two of the fragmen-
tary bowls from Helgo (Henricson, forthcoming)
and a new find from excavations in the ramparts of
Birka can be assigned to the same beaker category
(Henricson 1993a:143).
The find from Salum was reported by Bengt Emil
Hildebrand as early as 1837 (ATA: see above), and
classified as “a sherd that seems to derive from the
upper part of a glass urn”. A sherd exhibiting the
nntury-c. 750A.D. (Scale 2:1,
14 Glass Beads
It
Fig. 2. ‘Glass-beaker bead’from claw beaker. Brista,
Sweden. (Scale 2:1, 3:1)
same exterior reticella ornamentation and identical
mid-trail combination as the Uppland specimen (see
below) has been found at Ribe (Lene Lund Feveile,
pers. comm).
It can be mentioned as a matter of interest that
the Salum find is also the second most northerly
find of a glass beaker in Sweden, occurring south of
Holm, Overlannas parish, where a complete Migra-
tion-period beaker was discovered (Ekholm
1958a:34; 1974:424).
The chronological relationship between the
Salum sherd and the other grave goods is interest-
ing. It requires a brief comparative discussion of
the reticella beakers belonging to this group known
from Uppland. Boat-grave no. 6 of the Valsgarde
cemetery was dated by earlier scholars to c. AD
750 (Ar-widsson 1942:132) and to the first half of
the 8th century (Arwidsson 1977:126ff). Birgit
Arrhenius has examined the relationship between
the Uppland boat-grave tradition and Continental
chronology, giving this grave an earlier dating, to
the mid-7th century (Arrhenius 1980:6f, fig. 6;
Nasman 1986:64ff).
Observable features on all these beakers exhibit
similarities in respect of craftmanship and ornamen-
tation, but there is variation in size relationships and
also in the glass metal. The Salum sherd shows the
opaque white unmelted particles and intrusions in
the metal that seem to be characteristic of Frankish
glass from this period. A closer examination of one
of the ornamental details, the reticella cables pre-
served on the four Uppland finds, shows that all of
them exhibit a yellow outer trail ornamentation in
what is probably the same metal as that used in the
horizontal trail ornamentation on the body of the
beaker. Of the 52 cables on the Valsgarde bowl, five
show a simple rusty red mid-trail (Arwidsson
1932:261: Evison 1988:243, fig. 12; 1990:218), four a
simple yellow mid-trail, and seven a combination of
both rusty red and yellow mid-trails. In 36 cables,
this ornamental detail is not present at all. Both the
Helgo beakers and the find from Birka display the
same combinations of mid-trails as the Valsgarde
bowl. In addition, one of the Helgo beakers exhibits
white cable combined with the rusty red/yellow
ones (Henricson, forthcoming).
The ornamental or technological similarities in
both individual details and the general impression
conveyed by these four beakers mean that it is cer-
tainly possible to suggest that they were produced
at the same time. The beakers are the product of a
common craft tradition and were probably manufac-
tured in the same workshop or workshop group.
A further three burial beakers (cremation graves)
from Slagsta, Botkyrka parish, Sodermanland, (SHM
30982:80:3,4,8) exhibit great similarities to this
group. They are, however, fragmentary and dam-
aged by fire, and for this reason cannot be included
in the discussion of ornamentation above. They nev-
ertheless show very similar everted rims (Bennet
1972:247ff; Nasman 1986:77). The cemetery gener-
ally dates from late Period VII and/or early Period
This brief comparative discussion shows that the
Salum sherd can be dated to the period between 630/
40 and around 750 A.D. An interesting result of the
above discussion is that this “glass-beaker bead" was
around 150-250 years old when it was deposited in
the grave of the Salum woman. This draws atten-
tion to the fact that glass beads probably often ap-
pear as antiques in dated contexts, even though it is
seldom if ever possible to provide clear evidence
that such is the case. Thus a category of artefacts
that is already difficult to date is beset by further
problems. Many of the ornaments listed in the cata-
logue “Perlen und Glasbruchstiicke als Amulette”
(ring-shaped beads and bracelet fragments: Hae-
vernick 1970:120ff), can be shown to be antiques.
A further beaker sherd (fig. 2), has been encoun-
tered among beads in a grave from Brista,
Norrsunda parish, Uppland (SHM 26042; unfortu-
nately neither reported nor published). The sherd
derives from the middle section of a claw ornamen-
tation that exhibits technological characteristics
typical of many of the contemperary claw beakers
in the graves of the re2ion (Nasman
1986:62ff). The wear on the broken surfaces is simi-
lar to that observed on the Salum sherd. Claw beak-

ornament, Tingvollheimen, Norway. Late Merovingian
Period. Photo: H.C.H. Andersen. (Scale 2:1)
ers of similar colours have been recovered from the
boat-grave cemetery at Vendel in boat-grave 1, dated
to the early 7th century (Arrhenius 1980:36, fig. 6)
or to c. 700 A.D. (Arwidsson 1942a:120), and also
from Valsgarde, boat-graves 6 (see above) and 8,
from the end of the 6th century (Arrhenius 1980:36
fig. 6) and the second half of the 7th century
(Arwidsson 1942:70, Taf. 31:128; 1954:78ff, Taf. 28),
respectively.
The Helgo site also yielded claw beaker sherds
of this type. On this basis, the Brista sherd can be
dated between the end of the 6th and the second
half of the 7th century.
An example of the somewhat different re-use of a
glass beaker is reported from Visingso, Smiland.
In a Viking-period grave at Annelund, a blue, trail-
ornamented sherd was found. It was "probably West-
ern European" and had a drilled hole in which a
bronze ring was mounted. It was probably worn as
jewellery or an amulet (Arbman 1963:92).
Two sherds from grave 943 at Birka, mounted as
pendants, also belong to the latter category of pen-
dants or amulets. The set of jewellery in the grave
is rich in other respects too and is dated to the first
half of the 10th century (Arbman 1937:58f, Abb. 9).
These five glass “beaker beads”/ornaments and
the find from Sigtuna have, as far as I know, no fur-
ther parallels in Sweden. At present these finds seem
to be rare or unique, but more are probably await-
been thoroughly inspected.
Participants in the Nordic Glass Bead Seminar
provided information on further “beads” of the same
kind. These have been added to the finds already
known from Sweden. It has not been possible to
examine the find from Visingso or the finds in for-
eign collections in advance of this publication, so
they will not be further described here.
A richly equipped inhumation flat grave in the
cemetery ofTingsvollheimen.Tune parish, Ostfold,
Norway, contained an adult person, 18-20 years old.
One of the grave goods was a perforated rim sherd
light blue beaker (fig. 3). One end of the
Period (Andersen, in prep.).
A “translucent, pale green, perforated, Roman tu-
bular vessel rim fragment” (Beck, no. 1734; Cam-
bridge Museum, forthcoming), dated to 6th to 7th
century, has been reported from the Lakenheath
Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Suffolk, Eastern England.
A further British find (1864. 10-7. 1022, British
Museum; fig. 4) is of unknown provenance and ori-
gin. It is a fragment of a translucent blue glass ves-
sel, mounted in bronze. Dr. Veronica Tatton-Brown
of the British Museum has suggested a dating to
the Early Roman Period or the first century В.С./
A.D. (pers. comm.).
Three finds of sherds of similar character and
function ("remnants of Roman glass...”) were also
reported from the Buckland Anglo-Saxon cemetery
in Dover (Evison 1987:98f).
No fewer than five of these beads have been re-
covered from one of the largest Alamannic cemeter-
ies, in Weingarten, Baden-Wiirttemberg, South-
Western Germany (Wein 1958:469ff; Neuffer
1975:238ff). They derive from graves 18 & 277 2),
503 & 575. In the latter two graves, the beads were,
according to the reconstructed necklaces, placed in
a central position, amongst the beads of most spec-
tacular appearance and those which were the most
visible. They all seem to be rim sherds. On the ba-
sis of the find-combination analysis and studies of
the burial context, these necklaces have been dated
to the 7th century (Theune-Vogt 1990:7).
"...eine formlose blaue.ferner aus dem Rand eines
Glassgefasses herausgebrochene grossere Perle” comes
from an inhumation cemetery at Halimba-Cseres,
Hungary, phase II (end of the 10th and first half of
the Uth century) (Тбгбк 1962:150, Taf. XLIII)- This
bead is also centrally positioned in this case as the
main focus of attention in an otherwise unremark-
able set of beads. The assemblage also contains
twelve bronze Baltic temple-rings with S-shaped ter-
minations.
16 Glass Beads
1. The distribution of these finds in both Western
Notes
eas, does not seem to display any regional, so-
Dr. Lena Holmquist Olausson, the Archaeological Re-
te Swedish finds (Visingso and TorsSker)
were found in regions with an extremely small

been very familiar to the 7th-century popula-
cumstances underline the importance of com-
piling a complete list of this type of find.
functional status of these beads/ornaments by
the fact that they assume focal positions in sev-
eral of the sets of jewellery discussed here. The
The Antiquarian Collection, Ribe, provided information
Johan Callmer, Dept, of Archaeology, University of Umei
Christian H. Andersen, Arhus (Tingvollheimen), Dr.
Julian Henderson, Dept, of Archaeology, Sheffield Uni-
ish Museum. Dr. Katalin Szilagyi, Hungarian National
as evidence for the importance of glass beaker
products for re-use. Even fragmentary beak-
ers enjoy high status.
five. The illustrations and photos (fig. 4) are published
l^chngreSUlt °' SP°ntaneous and individ“al ”re-
4. Except tor the amulet from the British Museum
all the finds are definitely connected with
graves. In addition, almost all, or perhaps all
seem to be female	<___•	’
literature
Tingvollheimen v. Tune, 0stfold, Norge^
Nasman, U., 1984: Gias och handel i senromersk tid och
folkvandringstid. En studie kring glas frSn Eketorp
II, Gland, Sverige. AUN 5. Uppsala.
- 1986; Vendel period glass from Eketorp-II, Gland, Swe-
Vendel period studies. Stockholm 1983).
-	1942: Valsgarde 6. Uppsala.
-	1977: Valsgarde 7. Uppsala.
Weingarten, Kr. Ravensburg. Kleine Schriften aus dem
Тбгбк, G., 1962: Die Bewohner von Halimba im 10. und
Botkyrka. Fornvannen 67, 3/4.
the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropol-
Ekholm, G., 1958a: Westeuropaische Glaser in Skan-
1974. Uppsala, ₽1974).
Evison, V., 1987: Dover: The Buckland Anglo-Saxon Cem-

-1988: Some Vendel, Viking and Saxon glass. In: B. H3rdh
et al. (ed.): Trade and Exchange in Prehistory. Acta
Archaeologica Lundensia, Series in 8, nr. 16.
Jahrbuch 15, 1968. R-G.Z.M.
Henricson, L.G., 1993a: Glass Vessels and
Surveys 1976-1989. Theses and Papers in Archaeol-
- 1993b: Late Viking Period and Early Medieval Glass and
Excavations in Uppland, Eastern Central Sweden. In:
Bjorko (Birka), Sweden. 7. Uppsala.
Deutschland. Monogr. RGZM 1,2.

19
THE QUESTION
OF BEADMAKING
IN THE LATE
ROMAN IRON AGE
ATLUNDEBORG,
DENMARK
By Per 0. Thomsen
For part of the Iron Age, South-eastern Fyn was
one of the richest areas of Denmark. Nowhere
else have so many gold and silver hoards been
found, with more than 10 kg of gold alone. Both the
largest settlement area of prehistoric Denmark, and
the largest cemetery, with more than 2,200
cremation graves, have been found near the village
of Gudme, and the oldest trading centre in Denmark
so far has been excavated at Lundeborg (fig. 1).
This trading centre was founded on a sandy bank
and covers an area nearly 1000 m long and 80-100 m
wide along the coast on either side of the stream
Tange A. The site is characterized by a thick, black
occupation layer with items and traces of activity
from a period of 500 years. The whole area seems
to have been in use from the very beginning. Ships
from outside could land on the flat beach in front of
the trading centre.
The date of the foundation of the trading centre
and its development in the course of time can be
determined from the finds. It was established about
200 A.D., and down to about 550 A.D. activity was
extensive on both sides of the streams.
After 550 A.D. the area in use was considerably
reduced, and down to 700 A.D. only a 500 m long
section north of the stream was used. We can see a
decline in the scope of activities in the same period.
At the beginning of the 8th century, Lundeborg lost
its importance.
The settlement at Lundeborg is quite different
from that at Gudme. The latter is characterized by
normal farm buildings.
The only traces of any kind of buildings at Lunde-
borg are found south of the stream, in the oldest
deposits. These consist of small huts, measuring
about 4 m x 5. These small huts probably functioned
as workshops for crafts- and tradesmen. No traces
of farms or bigger houses are found elsewhere, and
it is evident that the settlement at Lundeborg was
only used in market periods for a few weeks each
year between spring and autumn. Thus the settle-
ment structure was of a part-time nature.
The site differs from other contemporary settle-
ments from the Iron Age in Denmark. It was not
permanently inhabited, and it is linked to the coast.
settlement. 2. The Mollegardsmark cemetery. 3. Gudme
The most striking feature, however, is the huge
quantity of small finds. Almost all of these can be
linked to activities in the trading and handicraft area,
e.g. waste material from workshops, half-finished
items, weights, gold to be used for payment, and
Roman coins. All the known handicrafts of the Iron
Age are represented. Beside the local craft prod-
ucts, imported goods such as glass, bronze and
pieces of terra sigillata were probably traded,
though this is difficult to prove. The exchange of
goods from the Roman Empire must have been one
of the reasons for the establishing of the settlement
(Thomsen 1990).
2Q Glass Beads
From the distribution of the small finds it is pos-
sible to judge where specific activities took place.
The distributions do not represent the workshops
themselves, but they do reflect workshop dumps,
e.g. concentrations of waste, raw materials, half-fin-
ished items etc. The finds also include a wide vari-
ety of tools from the various crafts (Thomsen 1993)
(fig. 2).
The raw materials from Lundeborg settlement are
themselves interesting, as besides raw material such
as iron and bronze bars, pieces of antler, amber etc.,
they include an extensive range of items meant for
There is actually not much undefined material
from the settlement, as most of it can be categorized
as scrap meant for re-use.
This view is based upon the presence of a huge
quantity of iron and bronze scrap including offcuts
from Roman bronzework, and offcuts from silver
sheet. If such metal remnants were found in nor-
mal settlements, their contexts would be inter-
preted as dumps. In the settlement at Lundeborg
the scrap is scattered, but we nevertheless have to
regard it as material for re-use and not as waste
(fig. 3).
The Illerup weapon-hoard shows that scrap of
various kinds was collected and kept in leather
Z? ‘‘’ Л	therefore ass“™ ‘hatTrap
metois, including iron, were not only re-used by
“*Я*те". hut also had a value as a means of pay-
Md touohea”yMn,<1 Pr°f"ably be coUected
raw Xai eS°ld,010Cal '«er on as
s,stemyi„VT “’“Г WaS a “““Bated economic
chided Л	at Lundeborg which in-
HeJTnOr,,COnlrolled trade “ Roman luxu-
nes. Here the settlement was perhaps only a phce
of transit for goods to be redistributed in a local sys-
tem. This trade was limited to a narrow circle of
people. The finds also testify to trade at the centre.
This can be proved by the presence of the work-
shops and of denarii and hackgold. This trade may
also have involved something similar to an economy
based on natural produce, which is reflected in the
re-used scrap.
These ideas underlie my approach to the theme
of this conference.
When in 19871 put forward the idea of local bead
manufacturing at Lundeborg in the late Roman Iron
Age, I had little supporting evidence. Our material
has grown since then, but the basis for this idea is
still slender. The material consists primarily of waste
from the workshops, which is scattered and scarce,
and secondly of pieces of broken glass and, of
course, glass beads (fig. 4 & 5). The presence of
waste could indicate beadmaking, but there can be
other explanations. It might accidentally have been
in parcels brought directly to the site from the
beadmaker's workshop, and thus found its way into
the settlement layers when the goods were un-
loaded. To elucidate this point it is necessary to
make comparative studies.
Up to now, such comparative studies have been
quite summary, but some important details do
emerge. However, it must be stressed that the
number of settlements compared is limited.
J°.ne	the settlements is Klein Koris, Kreis
Kdnigs Wusterhausen. in Eastern Germany, where
some Grubenhauser of the Late Roman Iron Age have
been excavated. The finds from this settlement are
ЬУ ev,dence for crafts, and there is a
distinct concentration of bronze scrap for re-use.
• fpeclfl mterest in this connection is that
there is a lot of broken glass, representing about
The Question of beadmaking in the late Roman Iron Age at Lundeborg,Denmark	21
•Wtl
• ( 3) •
I • I



twenty different glass vessels. None of these ves-
sels are complete. There is only one. or just a few,
pieces from each vessel. These pieces of broken
glass are regarded as pieces gathered for re-use -
collected with the intention of using them for
beadmaking. Workshop waste, indicating bead-mak-
ing has also been found at the settlement (Gustavs
1989:168ff).
In another quite ordinary settlement at Miihlberg,
Kreis Gotha in Eastern Germany, a limited number
of pieces of broken glass and waste material from a
glass beadmaker’s workshop were found. These
finds are interpreted as indications of local, Ger-
manic, glassbead manufacturing (Laser 1982). Finds
that indicate bead-making have also been found at
the settlement of Dunmisk in Northern Ireland,
dated to the Early Viking Age (Henderson & Ivens
1992:57ff).
In both Miihlberg and Klein Koris there seems
to be no reason for considering any accidental mix-
ture between the waste material and the pieces of
broken glass. There is, however, no further docu-
mentation of local bead manufacturing in the late
Roman Iron Age.
It has not, so far, been possible to find definite
proof of beadmaker’s workshops in Germania

Fig. 5. Pieces of broken glass and
glass-beads.
22 G,ass Beads
Libera. It seems in fact that we have to turn to the
compare Lundeborg with the above-mentioned sites,
shops of the 3rd and 4th century A.D. Trier seems
to be the only site, where glass beads have been
manufactured. This view has been disputed, how-
ever (Cuppes 1990:630; Roller 1990:293; Tempel-
mann 1985:133ff).
I come back once more to the trading centre at
Lundeborg, where a considerable amount of mate-
rial intended for re-use has been identified. If we
also meant for re-use. This, of course, rejects the
previous theory that these pieces were from Roman
vessels broken during transportation, and therefore

Fig. 8. The distribution of glass
one piece from each vessel. Consequently the pieces
from the Lundeborg settlement could be pieces that
were picked up and deliberately brought to the site
for re-use, meaning that even broken glass vessels
could be valuable.
Evidently, most of the pieces of broken glass have
disappeared from the site. Another explanation
might be that the broken glass vessels were col-
lected on the beach. The few remaining pieces are
those which were left behind from unknown reasons.
If - and I emphasize the if - we suppose that the
sherds are for re-use, this may be evidence of local
glass bead manufacturing.
We may compare this evidence with the waste
from the workshop, a total of 37 pieces. These
pieces were very scattered, and this does not sup-
port the idea of a bead-maker's workshop; nor does
the fact that the amount of waste is extremely small
(fig. 6).
It must be noted, however, that traces of the
workshops are generally quite scattered, and that
in the workshops themselves the items found vary
in material and number. One must also point out that
the actual workshops, and consequently the traces
of a possible glass beadmaker’s workshop, are some-
what blurred, especially considering the small
amount of finds.
Comparing the distribution of the above-men-
tioned finds with the 360 or so glass beads from the
settlement, one sees a merging of glass and bead
finds which might indicate local glass bead manu-
facturing. The problem here, of course, is determin-
ing the origin of these beads - are they local at all
(fig. 7 & 8)?
In this synopsis my basic tenet has been the re-
use of pieces of broken glass for local bead manu-
facturing. The purpose of my discussion has been
to show the probability of this. There is no absolute
proof, as the argument depends on the truth of the
two following propositions:
1. The pieces of broken glass were actually picked
2. The waste from the beadmaker’s workshop is
actually real remnants and not a result of
“unloading” beads at the beach.
There is no secure proof of re-use. Besides, it is
a question whether the beads and the glass pieces
match each other. Most of the glass sherds are
greenish, while the majority of the beads are made
of opaque, coloured glass. However, several beads
with colours that correspond to the colour on the
glass sherds are found at Lundeborg and in the
cemeteries of this area. A number of beads are dark
blue and transparent, and so do not correspond to
the glass pieces. Nevertheless, its modest quantity
borne in mind, the waste from the workshop
matches the beads. The scattering of waste seems
random and the beads may be Roman, which would
indicate that there was no local bead-manufacturing
in Lundeborg in the Late Roman Iron Age. The pres-
ence of waste material from glass beadmaking has
to be considered and an explanation of its presence
tion to the broken pieces of glass. Both Klein Koris
and Miihlberg produced identical materials, which
show that the Lundeborg material is not an acciden-
use, and they are not explained by transportation,
of materials, what possible explanation can be found?
proach would be to consider the material as having
some kind of value which made it worth collecting.
To round off this discussion I should also men-
tion that the settlement produced two fragments of
glassworking (fig. 9).
that it is fused glass. From the position in the cul-
Notes
1. Jergen Ilkjaer, the Illerup Project, MoesgSrd, has kindly
Literature
Gibbers, H., 1990: Topfereibezirk. Die Romer in Rhein-
land-Pfalz.
Friihgeschichte Potsdam, Band 23.
spatkaiserzeitliche Siedlung von Miihlberg, Kreis
Gotha. Produktivkrafte und Gesellschaftsformation in
Vorkapitalistischer Zeit. Berlin.
Roller, 0.. 1990: Wirtschaft und Verkehr. Die Romer in
Rheinland-Pfalz.
the 6th or 7th century A.D., but from this period we
have very few other traces from workshops.
Svendborg og Omegns Museum 1989.
Thomsen, P.O., 1993: Lundeborg - an Early Port of Trade
in South-East Funen. The Archaeology ofGudme and
Lundeborg. Report from a Conference at Svendborg, 23-
26 October 1991.
25
GLASS BEADS IN
ROMAN IRON AGE
DENMARK
tension on all levels. The main lines of the system
at present are as follows:
Main group 1: Undecorated, monochrome beads.
Group 1: Beads of a well-defined form (16 types).
Group 2: Beads marked by the manufacturing
process (16 types).
Group 3: Beads characterized only by their colour
(12 types).
By Inge Elisabeth Oildag
Main group 2: Decorated beads.
Group 1: Monochrome beads with external de-
coration (3 types).
Group 2: Polychrome beads with simple external
decoration (22 types).
Group 3: Polychrome beads with simple inlaid
decoration (7 types).
Group 4: Polychrome beads with composite inlaid
decoration (19 types).
Maingroup 3: Beads consisting of two separate
layers of glass.
Group 1: Without an intermediary layer.
Group 2: With an intermediary layer of silver foil (2
Group 3: With an intermediary layer of gold foil.
In Denmark, the time of the Roman Empire is the
earliest period in which glass beads can be said
to appear in numbers. Most finds are in graves,
a few at the beginning of the period, then in greater
numbers, and the majority from the Late Roman Iron
Age. So far only a small proportion of these beads
have been published, probably due both to the
excessive number of beads and the lack of a
systematic framework in which to present them. So,
on the basis of the records of the National Museum
in Copenhagen, there follows an attempt to create a
classificational system for these finds.
In this classificational system, each bead is de-
scribed in a code of eight figures, the first four of
which refer to a hierarchical division into main
groups (one figure between 1 and 9), group (one
figure between 1 and 9) and type (two figures be-
tween 01 and 99), and the next four to size (1-4),
grade of translucency (1 - 5) and colour (01 - 37).
The codes for the colours are linked to a colour at-
las, the Swedish NCS: Natural Colour System. List-
ing the three latter characteristics separately makes
it possible to include beads of different appearance,
size, shape etc. in the types, and thereby to use the
system both for classification and for cursory de-
scriptions. Furthermore the system is open to ex-
Distribution of bead-types
The chronology is as given by Eggers (1956)
modified by Lund Hansen (1987:30). It is not
possible in the given material to distinguish between
phases Bl and B2 in the Early Roman Iron Age and
between Cl, C2 and C3 in the Late Roman Iron Age,
but a marked difference in the occurrence of the
various bead-types was found between the Early and
the Late Roman Iron Age, and again between the
earlier (Cl-C2a) and the later (C2b-C3) phases of
the latter period.
The material includes 336 grave finds, of which
91 could be definitely dated to the Early Roman Iron
Age, 128 to the earlier phase and 41 to the final phase
of the Late Roman Iron Age. 7,820 of a total of about
9,000 beads were sufficiently well preserved to be
properly classified.
The character of the finds and the distribution of
bead-types in this material seems to agree with other
available literature on finds of glass beads in Den-
mark from the time of the Roman period. But with
regard to the quantities of beads or graves with
beads in each region, the proportion may change
when finds in local museums, especially many newer
ones, can be included.

Glass Beads in Roman Iron Age Denmark
Fig. 5. Late Roman Iron Age. Distribution of polychrome

Early Roman Iron Age
The finds from the Early Roman Iron Age (fig. 1)
are not equally distributed. Most come from
Bornholm, Fyn and the eastern part of Jutland, with
a few finds from along the Limfjord and the south-
western coast of Jutland. Considering the rich finds
from Sjaelland from the following period, it is
astonishing that all that is known here are four
reported but now lost silver-foil beads from Vangede,
presumably from a grave.
As a rule there is only one bead, or at best a few,
in each grave. The somewhat exotic nature of glass
beads in this period can be seen in a find from
Faurskov, Fyn: a rich inhumation grave with twenty
silver-foil beads, several of which can never have
been strung because their holes were filled with
melted glass, apparently right from the time of manu-
In spite of the relatively small number of beads,
there are certain differences in the occurrence of
the various types, as shown by the distribution maps
of the metal-foil beads (fig. 2) and three other types
common in the Early Roman Iron Age (fig. 3). The
metal-foil beads, most of them silver-foil beads with
an outer layer of amber-coloured glass, are wide-
spread but only dominant on Bornholm where they
amount to half of the total number of beads. The
majority of the remainder here consists of rather
small cobalt-blue beads, so that the finds from
Bornholm match the finds known from the Baltic
islands of Gland and Gotland. The small discoid
bead (fig. 3) is the most common type in Jutland
while it is extremely rare on the islands. It is
curved, flat underneath, and often has impressions
on the underlayer. This type could have been made
simply by piercing a drop of melted glass. The other
two types, the so-called “melon bead” of opaque,
turquoise glass and the similarly grooved cylindri-
cal bead of transparent/translucent glass are mainly
concentrated on Fyn, and are found on only a few
sites in Jutland.
Silver-foil beads with an outer layer of amber-
coloured glass reappear in the Viking Age, but their
early appearance in Denmark is confined to the Early
Roman Iron Age. This is also the case with the three
types of fig. 3; although there are later finds of melon
beads and grooved cylindrical beads, these are so
rare that they are best regarded as heirlooms.
The majority of the beads are made of naturally
coloured, transparent or translucent glass, coloured
28 Glass Beads
in bluish, greenish or brownish shades by copper
opaque red and yellow glass, are extremely rare. In
the classified material, only twenty-five beads are
polychrome, and only two of these, both with sim-
ple external decoration (group 2.2), are dated as
early as Bl. the rest belonging to B2. Most of these
finds come from the southern part of Fyn, Langeland
and Lolland-Falster.
Late Roman Iron Age (earlier phase)
The amount of beads increases considerably with
eastern part of Fyn. This is not fully reflected by
the map (fig. 4) which includes only the finds kept
the finds kept at the local museums could be added.
of very rich finds on Sealand is a new aspect, and
can surely be seen in connection with the con-
temporary importation of luxury goods to this area.
As in the Early Roman Iron Age. there is in the
earlier phase of the Late Roman Iron Age a marked
differentiation in the distribution of the various
types. Examples of distribution are shown on the
map (fig. 2) of metal-foil beads, which shows the
finds from both the Early and the Late Roman Iron
Age, while fig. 5 (polychrome beads with both sim-
ple and composite inlaid decoration: groups 2.34)
and fig. 6 (monochrome beads of types which are
predominantly made in transparent/translucent blue
glass) are both restricted to finds from the Late
Roman Iron Age.
The differences are, however, seen more clearly in
the diagram in fig. 7. The metal-foil beads (H). now
abusively gold-foil beads, still amount to nearly half
ink, °	t0?’ n,Umber °f beads on Bornholm. but
only to 10% on Sealand and 14% in Jutland, while thev
Ло^.ГГе,°П polychrom<-' beads, both
those With external (E) and inlaid decoration (F,G)
are most numerous and widespread on Sealand The
monochrome beads (А-D) form a majority in all №
«cept Bornholm where they amount only to
33%. таеу amount to 54% on Sealand. 66% in Jutland
and 83% on Fyn. Fyn is also the only region where
the share of the still relatively rare bead! of opaque
proportion of various groups of glass beads in each region
as percentages. Onlyfinds.from the collection of the National
translucent, D: opague. E: Polychrome beads with external
decorat,on (gmp 2.2). F: Polychrome beads with simple
mlatd decoration (group 2.3). G: Polychrome beads with
composite inlaid decoralion (group 2.4). H: Metal-foil beads
'vnP'M-W.Numberof beads: Sea^
912: Bornhotm:439; Fyn:499.

Fig. 8. Late Roman Iron Age (earlier phase). Number of
glass beads per grave, counted in each region: the National
Fyns Stiflsmuseum (Albrectsen 1956).
monochrome glass (B,D) equals those of transparent/
translucent glass (A,C).
As for social distribution, a simple count of the
number of beads in each grave carried out in each
region from the earlier and later phases of the Late
Roman Iron Age respectively shows a high degree
of conformity between the regions for the later phase
(fig. 8). There are only a few beads in most of the
graves, and less than ten graves contain more than a
hundred beads. It should be noted that in the two
graves from Fyn containing more than three-hundred
beads each, the bulk of the beads are very small.
The inserted curve shows the numbers of beads from
finds in Fyns Stiftsmuseum recorded by Albrectsen
(1968) and it fits the general picture well. When the
finds from the large cemetery of Mollegfirdsmarken
situated near Gudme in the South-west of Fyn
(Albrectsen 1971) are taken into consideration (fig.
9) the trend towards many graves with comparatively
few beads each is still more pronounced. In this early
1971). Note the altered scale for the number of graves.
30 Glass Beads

graves with glass beads from MollegArdsmarken, as
well as the total amount of beads from this area, ex-
Mollegirdsmarken might be the result of ample sup-
plies from the market place at Lundeborg, brought
about by trade or by local production. It may be re-
marked. though, that while the curve in fig. 9 shows
the situation in the earlier part of the Late Roman
Iron Age. the finds from Lundeborg which have led
to the discussion of the possibility of some local pro-
duction are dated to the later part of the period
(Thomsen, this volume). Contrary to the situation
in the rest of Denmark the number of beads on Fyn
apart from Mellegird^marken (fig. 11) decreases
at this time (see the inserted curve in fig 10)
There is still too Uttle evidence on how the beads
were worn to draw proper conclusions about local
AUt th.ere T no indications °f significant
diversity. A custom of wearing a small string around
me neck and a bigger one suspended between a pair
of brooches on the breast has been documented at
Himhngoje and Skovgdrde on Sealand (Ethelberg
X’s’o if a Roman Iron A®e‘ Although
not so well documented, this divi.i„„ u-...
tween a smaller and a bigger string is known from
The uneven regional distribution ol types that is
seen in the Early and at the beginning of the Late
Roman Iron Age can in my view best be explained
in terms of decentralized trade, with each region
Late Roman Iron Age (later phase)

Sealand alone exceed the total for the whole country
Fig. 13. As Fig. 7. Late Roman Iron Age. Fyn, with only
three finds, excluded. Number of beads: Siarlland: 1,330;
Jutland: 1,126; Bornholm: 230.
Glass Beads in Roman Iron Age Denmark 31
before but the number of finds is so much fewer that
the total of beads decreases. On Fyn, the picture
differs from the rest of the country. Here both the
number of finds and the average number of beads in
each find are reduced compared with the earlier
period (see fig. 10 with the inserted curve).
The variation in types is less than before, and the
differences between the three regions of Jutland,
Sealand and Bornholm (Fyn with only three finds
in the National Museum not taken into considera-
tion) becomes less distinct, as seen from the dia-
gram in fig. 13. The proportion of monochrome
beads increases in all regions, and although there
are still many beads of transparent/translucent blue
are dominated by opaque yellow, orange and espe-
cially red and brownish-red beads. The polychrome
beads are relatively few, and the beads of groups
2.3 and 2.4 and the gold-foil beads of type 3300 are
so few that they can be regarded as heirlooms.
Literature:
Albrectsen, E., 1956: Fynske Jernaldergrave, bd.II.
- 1968: Fynske Jernaldergrave, bd.HI. Kebenhavn.
-1971: Fynske Jernaldergrave, bd.IV. Kobenhavn.
Lund Hansen, U., 1987: Romischer Import im Norden.
Oildag, I.E., 1994: Glasperler i danske fund fra romersk
jernalder. Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og
Historic 1992. Kobenhavn.
33
FINDS OF GLASS , BEADS FROM THE TENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES IN LATVIA	The number of beads from the 10th to 13th centu- ies found across 130 sites in Latvia (Mugurevich 1965:72, fig. 31) by the middle of the 1960’s had reached 6,000, not counting tiny beads. The number )f beads found in recent excavations has increased by thousands, without changing the proportions of the various groups of glass beads significantly. Form and colour are very important in the clas- sification of beads (Artsikhovski 1930:27-28; Shchapova 1956:164-179), because the number of analyses undertaken is not sufficient to allow us to group the beads by their chemical composition and their method of production. ©800
By Evalds. Mugurevich	12	3	4 0 8 @ © a
lass beads as dress-accessories of former I -^inhabitants of the area of Latvia are V-J mentioned in the earliest publications of archaeological finds from the middle of the nineteenth century. Beads were then regarded as imports that had come into the Baltic area as a result of trade between Arabs and Vikings (Kruse 1842, Beilage C, 29). It was indicated that comparable glass beads had been found in Germany, Sweden and other Northern European countries (Bahr 1850:4). Early-medieval glass beads from Latvia were compared with similar finds in neighbouring countries, and their similarity of form was regarded as proof that they were imported from the East (Balodis 1940:48, 66 & 73). Investigation of the beads, however, has shown that external similarities (of form and colour) are insufficient for such conclusions. New possibilities in the investigation of glass beads appeared in the 1960’s, when chemico-tech- nical and spectral analysis were introduced to the examination of ancient glass. All the analyses (142) were undertaken at the Archaeological Laboratory, Moscow State University, under the direction of Yulia Shchapova (Shchapova & Daiga 1961:185-199; Mugurevich 1965:71-77, supplement 11, 140-144).	5	6	7	8	9 Fig. 1. The types of glass bead found in Latvia from the 10th to 13th centuries. 1-2: annular; 3; cylindrical; 4: double trapezoid; 5: barrel-shaped, with foil; 6: lemon-shaped; 7-8: fluted or ribbed; 9: tiny bead. A large proportion (about 50%) of glass beads from Latvia are of a ring shape (fig. 1,1-2) which can con- sist of several links. Approximately half of these ring- shaped (annular) beads are yellow, a quarter of them blue. There are also green, red and black annular beads. The earliest subgroup is the blue beads (10th and 11th centuries). These are smooth and franspar- Technological analysis proves that these were made of a Na-Ca-Mg-Si glass, either by cutting beads of a certain thickness from a glass tube or by winding. The blue colour was obtained by adding cobalt ox- ide. Pale blue annular beads made of Pb-Si or K-Pb- Si glass, and usually more than 10 mm in diameter, are of later date (the 12 th and 13th centuries). These were wound, and the colour obtained by adding cop- per oxide. Yellow annular beads were made of K-Pb- Si or Pb-Si glass either by pressing or by winding. Many beads of this subgroup from the 12th and 13th
34 Glass Beads
Several hundred inlaid glass beads (with protu-
width, or winding breaks. The yellow colour was
obtained by adding lead oxide. Green annular beads
were made of Pb-Si glass and their colour was ob-
tained by adding copper oxide. Necklaces were fre-
quently composed of both yellow and green beads,
several green beads to every ten yellow ones.
Opaque black annular beads begin to appear in the
late 12th century. Their special colour was obtained
by adding manganese and cobalt oxides. These beads
(Mugurevich 1965:74-76. fig. XI. 50-60, fig. MI, 38-
A few dozen 10th- to 12th- century cylindrical glass
beads (fig. 1. 3) are of various colours: yellow, blue
and in the 13th they were used as dress and head
ornaments by Lettigallian and Liv women (Zarina
K-Ca-Si; Na-Mg-Ca-Si; К-Pb-Si.
finds from the 8th century (Mugurevich 1965:74),
trapezoid beads (fig. 1, 4) can be divided into two
groups according to their size and chemical compo-
sition. These are beads with a diameter equal to the
height, and with a diameter exceeding the height
were made of Na-Ca-Mg. Na-Si or Na-K-Mg-Si blue
or green glass. They were made either from a glass
tube or by winding. Double trapezoid beads (2:1)
About one in five of the glass beads of the 10th to
13th centuries found in Latvia have metal foil (fig.
tral analysis shows that the so-called gold foil is in
fact yellowish silver (Bezborodov 1959:232) (1). In
respect of form, the golden and silver beads can be
divided into cylindrical and barrel-shaped groups.
Analyses prove that these beads were made of K-
Pb-Si glass and date back to the second hah of the
11th and first half of the 12th centuries.
Lemon-shaped glass beads (fig. 1, 6) are yellow
and greyish as well as golden, silver and striped.
They were made from a two-layered Na-Ca-Mg-Si
Fig. 2. The tiny beads found in Riga.
~	;----- ure rum century and
the beginning of the 11th. Fluted or ribbed glass
beads (fig. 1, 7-8), with a cross-section resembling
a rosette, are found in cylindrical or elliptical form
I wo groups of beads can be distinguished by chemi-
cal composition. Fluted beads of the 10th and 11th
ST re.Tde. ^Mg-Ca-Si or Pb-Si glass
while beads of the 12th and 13th centuries were
Sf^ °r KSl 8'aSS ’UmP5, f,rst wound ’nd
(Caune 1974:17-19; Tsaune & Grosvald 1975:279)
during excavations in Riga in 1973, when evidence
of local glass-production at the end of the 13th cen-
tury and in the 14th was found. The workshop itself
was not uncovered, but pieces of melting crucibles
and some of its products were recovered (1,520 glass
were made of Pb-Si glass. 82% of them were yellow,
the rest greenish (fig. 2).
It is obvious that goods produced in Riga were
sold in the neighbouring countryside. Beads have
Finds of Glass Beads from the tenth to tenth to thirteenth Centuries in Latvia 35
ries in peasants’ graves dating up to the 17th cen-
tury. In excavations between 1966 and 1973 at
Salaspils Martinsala, for instance, 20 km from Riga,
10,000 tiny beads of the 13th to 15th centuries were
(Salaspils Laukskola).
There is no reliable evidence that the beads of other
types found in Latvia were also made here. To ascer-
tain their likely place of origin, one must take into
account the nearest established centres of glass-bead
production and the similarity of their products to the
beads found in Latvia. The nearest glass-bead work-
shops (Dekowna 1980) of the earlier Middle Ages
were located in Russia, Byelorussia, the Ukraine, Po-
land, Germany and Sweden. Glass beads of the 10th
and 11th centuries made of Na-Ca-Si glass have a close
compositional similarity to beads of the Middle East
and Byzantium, where glass-manufacturing traditions
were well established, while eastern goods had vast
markets throughout Eastern Europe (Shchapova
1983:178). It is probable that some of these beads
reached Latvia together with Arab dirhams and ori-
ental battle axes, as many of the Na-Ca-Si beads have
been discovered in the same finds.
To determine the routes of importation to Latvia
in the 10th and 11th centuries one must bear in mind
that some workshops in Eastern Europe - for in-
stance in Staraja Ladoga - producted Na-Ca-Si glass-
ware (L’vova & Naumov 1970:17). At that time, glass-
bead workshops existed in Hedeby (Jankuhn
1963:247), in Scandinavia (Lundstrbm 1976:3) and
in Poland (2), but there is no direct evidence that
beads were imported from there.
From the 12th century, Na-Ca-Si glass beads were
gradually superseded by К-Pb-Si and Sb-Si glass
beads, which had already been encountered sporadi-
cally in the 11th century. Yulia Shchapova is of the
opinion that the K-Pb-Si and Pb-Si glass beads and
bracelets found in Latvia are similar to those of Rus-
sia not only in chemical composition but also in pro-
duction technology and form (Shchapova 1972:191;
Shchapova & Daiga 1961:195). It can therefore be
assumed that these beads were either imported from
Russia or manufactured in Latvia following the form,
composition and technology of imported beads.
The Na-Ca-Si beads are found only on the main
trade routes of the period. The К-Pb-Si and Pb-Si
beads, by contrast, are evenly distributed across the
eastern part of Latvia and on the main trade routes
of the western part. It can therefore be suggested
that some of these beads are of local manufacture
(as has been proved in the case of the tiny beads).
The K-Ca-Si glass beads first appeared at the end of
the 12th or the beginning of the 13th century, and
their composition and production technology are
characteristic of Western Europe (Shcha-pova
1983:187).
Glass beads of the 10th to 13th centuries were
chiefly used in Latvia in necklaces. They are conse-
quently found mostly in women’s graves (fig. 3). Up
to the 12th century, the quantity of beads was small;
later, in the 12th and 13th centuries, larger orna-
ments, often including shells and pendants, were
buried. Glass beads are rare in men’s graves, ap-
pearing only in richly furnished merchants’ graves.
It can therefore be suggested that in special cases
glass beads functioned as money (Stenberger
1958:222; Yanin 1965:179).
Notes
1. Glass beads with gold foil are found only in a few
Latvian hill-forts (Shchapova & Daiga 1961:199).
2. Early-medieval glass workshops have been discovered
in at least four towns in Poland, though Na-Ca-Si glass
is regarded as imported there (Olczak 1971:111,
1991:99-106).
Literature
Artsikhovski, A.V., 1930: Kurgani vjatichei. Moscow.
B2hr, J.K., 1850: Die Graber der Liven. Dresden.
Balodis, F., 1940: Jersika un tai 1939, gada izdaritie
izrakumi. Riga.
Bezborodov, M.A., 1959: Tekhnologija proizvodstva
stekljanikh bus v drevnosti. Trudi gosudarstvennogo
istoricheskogo muzeja, No. 33. Moscow.
Caune, A., 1974: Pirmas liecibas par stikla apstrSdi
viduslaiku Riga. Zinatniskas atskaites sesijas material!
36 Glass Beads
pararheologu un etnografu 1973. gada pitijumu rezul-
tatiem. Riga.	r .
Dekowna. M., 1980: Szkto w Europie wczesnosrednw-
wiecznej. Wroclaw. Warszawa. Krakow. Gdansk
Jankuhn. H.. 1963: Haithabu. Neumiinster.
Kruse. E, 1842: Necrolivonica. Dorpat.
Lundstrom. A.. 1976: Bead Making in Scandinavia in the
Early Middle Ages. Early Medieval Studies, 9. Stock-

hozhdenija stekljanikh bus VHI-X w. Staroj Ladogi.
Slavia antiqua, XVII.
Mugurevich. E.S.. 1965: Vostochnaja Latvija i sosedniye
zemli v X-X1II vv. Riga.
Veroffentlichungen des Museums fur Ur- und Fruhge-
-	1972: Steklo Kiyevskoj Rusi. Moscow.
-	1983: Ocherki istorii drevnego steklodelija. Moscow.
-	& l.V. Daiga. 1961: Stekljaniye busi i brasleti Asotskogo
Latvijskoi SSR. 2. Riga.
Wikingerzeit. I. Text. Stockholm.
Tsaune (Caune). A.V. & I. Ya. Grosvald, 1975: Noviye
danniye о nachale steklodelija v Pribaltike. Iz istorii
yestestvoznanija i tekhniki Pribaltiki. Riga.
Yanin, V.L.. 1956: Denezhno vesoviye sistemi russkogo
srednevekovja. Moscow.
Zarina. A. 1970: Sno togula at&rb, 7.-13. p. Riga.
-1988: IJbiahu ap'girbs 10.-13. gs. Riga.
37
SOME GREEK AND ROMAN PENDANTSAND BEADS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM	some negro heads, is dated by finds from the Le- vant, Egypt and Carthage (2) and was perhaps made on the island of Rhodes, starting around 600 B.C. It would thus fill an uncomfortable gap of about fifty years in the core-formed production of that island which seems to have been inspired by the arrival or local manufacture of Mesopotamian-type core- formed vessels (Barag 1984:150-151; Tatton-Brown in Barag 1985:115-117). However, those were made between about 700 and 600 B.C., while the prolific production of core-formed vessels by the Rhodian glassmakers begins no earlier than about 550 B.C. It is indeed true that more of these pendants have been found in either Phoenicia itself or places with which Phoenicia was in close contact by trade, but there is no evidence that the Phoenicians actually
By Veronica Tatton-Brown	made as well as traded in core-formed glass at this time. The Rhodian workshops ceased production about 400 B.C. and the later pendants were prob- ably made principally in Syro-Palestinan workshops alongside later core-formed vessels. To the third century (and later) belong small female heads (fig. 1c), many of which have been found in the Levant (Syria, Palestine and Cyprus) or Egypt. Satyr heads (fig. la) are not so common, but share their hair and colour with the female heads and so are prob- ably contemporary (Seefried 1982:118 type С VI;
F | ^his paper aims to provide some information I about the collection of pendants and beads -h. housed for the most part in the Greek and Roman Department of the British Museum. The classification depends principally on technique of manufacture, but this aspect will not be discussed in detail here. The majority of types have a loop at the top showing their function. This will only receive attention when it is absent, making the items into beads instead. The first group consists of core-formed head pen- dants (fig. 1). These are, I believe, the first core- formed pendants from the Greek and Roman world and are the first evidence for the use of this tech- nique in that area, although pendants were formed on a core earlier in Egypt, at the time of its flourish- ing industry in core-formed vessels (Andrews in Tait 1991:35-36, pl. 36; Goldstein 1979:78-80, nos. 124- 128; Grose 1989:54 & 64, nos. 21-22, colour pl. 43)	Tatton-Brown 1981:152 type IID  So many examples of another group, that includes large male heads with hair and beards of spiral ringlets applied sepa- Fig. 1. a. (top left): EA 64220satyr head, from Karnak, Egypt,
(1). The first group of the Mediterranean series (Grose 1989:82-83; Seefried 1982; Tatton-Brown 1981:143ff; Idem in Barag 1985:115-117) compris- ing small triangular head pendants showing demonic heads, sometimes with horns, and some roughly cylindrical male heads with plain hair (fig. If), oc- casionally secured by a plain headband, as well as	3rd century B.C.; b.ftop centre): EA 16531 male head. 4th century B.C.; c.ttop right): EA 64222 female head, from Egypt, 3rd century B.C.; d.(bottom left): EA 16536 negro head, probably from Egypt. 4th century B.C.; e. (bottom centre): EA 63728 ram’s head, probably from Egypt, 4th to 3rd century B.C.; f. (bottom right): EA 62580 male head, from a tomb at Mostagedda, Egypt, about 600 B.C.
38 Glass Beads
Fig. 3. Left: GR 1886.11-17.325: Centre: GR 1883.6-21.1;
Right: GR 1868.5-1.60.
rately and large rams’ heads (fig. le), have been found in North Africa, notably at Carthage in Tuni- sia, that it has been suggested that they were made there (Seefried 1982:3940). However the discovery of a number from further east, including finds from Ukraine, probably the area of the Black Sea (Tatton- Brown 1981:143), suggests that there might have been a workshop in the East as well. The translu- cent glass used for the spiral hair and beards of the large male heads is very like that both of the han- dles and base knobs of contemporary core-formed vessels (Harden 1981:129ff, amphoriskoi of divisions ii-v), and of a series of slumped monochrome ves- sels made in Syro-Palestinian workshops at about the same time (Cummings 1980:23-27: Grose 1989:193-194: Gudenraht in Tait 1991:219-221). Closely connected with the pendants, in both tech- nique and the colours that they use, is a series of	cylindrical beads decorated with either faces or more simply with eyes and blobs (fig. 2) (Tatton- Brown 1981:154-155). These naturally have a hol- low through the centre. They have been found over a wide area, but none come from securely dated contexts. Several have no known provenance but significant are the finds from Ukraine and Olbia in the British Museum (Tatton-Brown 1981:154-155). Hitherto none have been found in the Phoenician homeland, but a considerable number are known from Carthage and other Phoenician and Punic colo- nies in the western Mediterranean. Nonetheless, the finds from the Black Sea region, and Cyprus and Rhodes too, indicate a Phoenician rather than, or as well as, a Punic source. They were made in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. A late survival, or perhaps revival, of the core- formed technique is represented by a series of mini-
Some Greek and Roman Pendants and Beads in the British Musern 39

Fig. 5. a: GR 1872.7-26.41, said to be from Ascalon, Syria;
b: GR 1868.5-1.61.

Fig. 6. a. (top left) GR 1976.10-1.9, ‘Baubo’; b. (centre)
GR 1959,7-10.24, ‘arpocrates’; c.(top right) GR 1906.6-
27.24, grapes, from southern Russia; d. (bottom left) GR
1886.11-17.55, bird or dove, said to be from Rome;
e. (bottom right) 1976.10-1.11, eagle.
ature vessels (not necessarily used as pendants).
There are three principal types. The first (fig. 3 left &
right and fig. 4a-c) consists of round-mouthed juglets
decorated with unmarvered trails, the second (fig. 4d-
e) of rather taller juglets with simpler decoration and
knobbed bases, and the third (fig. 3 centre) again of
round-mouthed pieces, but now decorated with an
openwork pattern. Parallels from datable contexts are
known near Nazareth and Jerusalem and date from
the third and fourth centuries A.D. (Richmond 1931:53,
tomb 5, pl.xxxiii.2,3; Hamilton & Husseini 1935:172,
tomb 10a, pl.baod.12.) (3). Related by technique and
also trail decoration is a group of barrel-shaped pen-
dants of the same date (4).
The next few types were all made with the use of
mould, either by pouring viscous glass onto a flat
Fig. 7. a. (left) GR 1772.3-17.902, comic mask; b. (centre)
GR 1879.5-22.1, 'Bes' head pendant, from Egypt; c. (left)
GR 1879.5-22.12, ‘Bes’, from Egypt.
slab and applying the mould like a stamp or by cast-
ing glass in a two-piece mould. For our first series,
the mould was evidently held on a piece of wire or
even a blade of grass to form the pin hole in the
bottom. This group shows heads on either side, ei-
ther male or female (fig. 5) (Williams, Tatton-Brown
& Walker 1991:80-81), and is on the whole homoge-
neous in both technique and design, the female
heads being more common and less differentiated
than the male. Only seven have been found in se-
curely dated contexts, six of which fall within the
fourth century B.C., but the seventh, showing male
heads, was found with a coin of Juba II (23 B.C.-25
A.D.), and another example is attached to a neck-
lace in Berlin assigned to the third or fourth cen-
tury AD. The majority with known findspots come
from sites in the Western Mediterranean and it may
well be that many were produced in a Carthaginian
workshop in the fourth century B.C., but there are
a number from sites further east suggesting again
an eastern workshop as well.
Of certainly eastern Mediterranean origin, and
perhaps all produced in a single workshop on the
Phoenician coast in the second to first century B.C.,
is a a group made of translucent monochrome glass
in two-piece moulds (fig. 6) (Barag 1985:60 & 88-
89, nos. 113-114; Tatton-Brown 1990:113). Heads,
human figurines, bird and animal figurines and fruit
are all represented. Among the figurines are ex-
amples of a seated, squatting female figure (fig. 6a)
sometimes identified as Baubo, a Greek female de-
mon, best known from a late (Hellenistic) version
of an Orphic hymn that tells of the rape of Kore
(5). Terracotta figurines of similar types are
known from late Hellenistic workshops in Egypt
and Asia Minor, but this identification is far from
certain (Hart 1986:88-89). Some standing figu-
40 Glass Btads
Fig. 8. All from Egypt, a: GR 1879.5-22.14; b-d: GR
1879.5-22.17.
rines (fig. 6b) hold a finger in the mouth, a typi-
cal gesture for Harpocrates, the Greek name for
the Egyptian Hor-pa-khred, Horus the younger or
child (6). However these figurines lack his typical
headdress and side lock of youth. Negro heads of
translucent purple glass are typical of the series
of of heads; less common are heads of comic ac-
tors (7). Amongst the bird and animal figurines are
eagles and doves (fig. 6d-e), the latter perhaps a
divine symbol (8). Bunches of grapes (fig. 6c) form
the fruit category (Cummings 1980:23-27; Grose
1989:193-194; Gudenraht in Tait 1991:219-221) (9).
The translucent monochrome glass is reminiscent
again of that used for the series of slumped bowls
from Syro-Palestinian workshops and core-formed
vessels’ handles and base knobs (10). A Phoenician
origin for these pendants would also explain the
choice of Egyptianizing themes with a Greek flavour.
Roughly oval plaques of dark glass appearing
black (fig. 7), made with the use of a one-piece
mould or stamp, each have two holes running hori-
zontally through them and so are strictly beads
rather than pendants (11). They show comic masks
(fig. 7a) or masks of young men, or figures of the
Egyptian dwarf-god ’Bes’ (fig. 7c). Several pieces,
similar in size and fabric to ours showing masks,
are decorated with simple ribs. The provenance,
when known, of examples in the British Museum,
whether showing heads or figures, is most often
Egypt, but one comes from Olbia on the Black Sea
(12). None of ours came from datable contexts, but,
of the few of the whole series that do, the contexts
fall for the most part in the fourth century A.D.
The fabric too would allow a Late-Roman date. A
group of nine examples, three of translucent brown
glass and six of bottle green glass, were found to-
gether in a fourth century A.D. child’s grave in
Hungary thus confirming the Late-Roman date for
the group (Fiilep 1984:91 & 303, fig.99.10/8, pl.
LII.7) (13). The excavator, however, suggests that
these beads together made up a bracelet, though
there is no real evidence to support this theory
(14). A series of blue glass show satyr heads (fig.
8), and are pierced through the centre like those
of dark glass, but with a single hole, and share the
same technique. All the examples in our collection
come from Egypt and reached the Museum from
the same source. An Egyptian workshop seems to
have been responsible for them and a Late-Roman
date is again the most likely.
A small group of true pendants, also made with a
one-piece mould, are in the form of heads and made
of opaque blue glass (fig. 7b). They are pierced
through the crown rather than having an attached
loop and must be roughly contemporary with the
plaques as they use the same technique and the same
material as those showing satyr heads.
of Syro-Palestinian pendants (fig. 9) (15). Quite of-
mon theme and Christian and Jewish symbols ap-
pear on some of the later examples.
Back in the third to second century B.C., the so-
gold in glass pieces that are pierced vertically through
the centre and so were evidently beads (fig. 10). They
show an image of a Harpocrates-type figure, not un-
centuries B.C. (Laffineur 1986:100 & note 150;
Williams & Ogden 1994:146 & nos. 181-182) (18).
(19).
was found in Egypt, and the others come from the area
of the Black Sea. Technically they belong with the gold
at Canosa in southern Italy that belong most probably
ture of both the vessels and our plaques remains a
mystery, but the discovery of a factory making gold
beads and vessels on the island of Rhodes at this time
1969:143-151, 1983:37, 1992:22-23).
It seems only right to draw attention at this point
ample (fig. 11a) was found in Egypt. As early as the
eighteenth dynasty of the later second millennium
B.C. crescent-shaped pendants were made in Egypt
(Andrew in Tait 1991, pl. 36, top left), but the type
was also popular in the Roman era when it is worn
in several portraits of the second century A.D. (Hoke
1974) (20), where our example (fig. lib) must be-
long. Our disc (fig. 11c) decorated with an applied
pl. 6 & 32, no. 137aa & a2, pl. 44; Eisen 1927:535, fig.
231). They are evidently quite late in the series, dat-
ing from the fourth to fifth century A.D.
Finally our collection contains a number of items
that have been converted into pendants with the use
42 Glass Beads
with coins of the third quarter of the first century B.C
9. Cf. also the handles and base-knobs of contemporary
core-formed vessels (Harden 1981:129ff, amphoriskoi
of divisions ii-v).
Fig. 12. GR 1906.6-27.38. from southern Russia.
type found on necklaces together with core-formed
head-pendants of our earlier groups of the sixth and
fifth centuries B.C. (21). Of our eight examples, six
come from tombs at Amathus on Cyprus. There is
also part of a stirring rod (fig. 12) of a well-known
type of the first to second century A.D. (Price
1992:455). The bronze mounts in every case are
ancient, but there is no way of knowing when the
items were converted into pendants.
I have not been able to describe all the groups of
pendants in our collection (22), but I have covered
the principal series and I hope given some idea of
the range belonging to the Greek and Roman eras.
Notes
Photographs are published by courtesy of the Trustees
of the British Museum and the drawings are by Marion
Cox. All the items are in the British Museum, GR: De-
partment of Greek and Roman Antiquities; EA: Depart-
ment of Egyptian Antiquities.
for the opportunity to present this paper at what was a
most interesting and enjoyable occasion.
1.	For the core-formed vessels of early Egypt see in par-
ticular Nolte 1968.
2.	For a review of early examples see Seefried 1982:25-27.
3.	An undecorated example was found in a grave of the
early sixth century A.D. at Lackford, Suffolk, Eng-
land (Lethbridge 1951:35f, grave 48. no. 7, fig. 12).
4.	Gr 1906.6-27.20 of dark glass appearing black deco-
rated with opaque green trails, from Olbia; GR
1879.11-8.56, of dark glass as the last, but decorated
with opaque dark red marvered trails, said to be
from Tyre.
4. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae s.v.
1 can be quoted
recntlv т 7 о K ₽5’ Г0Г negro heads- see
recently Tatton-Brown 1990:113.
pTiS P"“ Иаг’Ь 1962:73-
43. ph XII. 1), and another was once in Dresden
(Pagenstecher 1923:119. pl. 50.22),
although the Louvre curators tell me that there is no
evidence that their pieces come from Cyprus.
12. GR 1906.6-27.13.
i see Bona 1956:214,
figs. 18-20.
16.	Harden 1968:21ff, for a comprehensive survey of the
group. Various attempts have been made to revise
en’s date (Pfrommer 1987:1-2 & 115-116). For the
Canosa group as a whole see Grose 1989:185ff and
for early gold glass, Barag 1990:19-25.
17.	Gr 1978.8-18.1. Other examples in the British Mu-
seum include GR 1903.8-13.16 (a few strung with oth-
ers) and GR 1903.8-13.17 (almost a complete string),
both strings from Behnesa, Egypt.
18.	Williams & Ogden 1994:51, no. 2 for an examble from
the Greek world.
19.	Leskov 1972, no. 23 illustrates examples on a neclace
dated to the fourth century B.C. from an Ukranian
20.	Worn by a Palmyrene statue. My thanks to Dr. Sandra
Knudsen for this information.
21.	Gr 1894.11-1.81, 87, 215,216, 707 and GR 1969.4-1.99
all from Amathus; also Gr 1867.5-6.20 and 1906.6-
27.43. For examples on necklaces cf. Tatton-Brown
1981, nos. 405, 406, 415.
22.	They will be published in full in Tatton-Brown forth-
coming, which will also give further parallels for the
Literature
Barag. D.. 1984: Rewiewof D.B. Harden. Catalogue of Greek
and Roman Glass in the British Museum 1. Antiquaries
Journal LXJV.
- 1985: Catalogue of Western Asiatic Glass in the British
Museum I. London.
-1990: The prelude to Hellenistic gold glass. Annales du
pays de la Mediterranee Antique. Rome.
I’Histoire du Verre, Bdle 1988. Amsterdam.
and Roman Antiquities. In: D.B. Harden (ed.): Cata-

seum I. New Acquisitions No. 1 (1976-79). British
- 1990: Notes on some glass pendants and bangles from
Filarska, B., 1962: Ancient Glassware (in Polish), Warsaw

Ftilep. E, 1984: Sopianae. Archaeologica Hugarica NS XV.
liminary Report of the Ninth Season of Work, 1935-
1936, Part II, The Necropolis. New Haven.
Grose, D., 1989: The Toledo Museum of Glass. Early Аи-
glasses in the British Museum. Journal of Glass Stud-
- 1992: Glass Vessels in Ancient Greece. Athens.
Williams, D. & J. Ogden, 1994: Greek Gold. Jewellery of
the Classic World. London.
Williams, D., V. Tatton-Brown & S. Walker, 1991: A lady
from Miletopolis. Jewellery Studies V.
-1981: Catalogue of Greek and Roman Glass in the British
Hart. G.. 1986: A Dictionary of Egyptian Cods and God-
Hoke, V., 1974: Portrait of Ummabi. Toledo Museum News
L’orfevrerie. Etudes Chypriotes VII. Paris.
Lethbridge, T.C., 1951: A cemetery at Lackford, Suffolk
LIMC, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae.
Nolte, B„ 1968: Die GlasgefSsse im alten Aegypten.
Miinchner Aegyptologische Studien, no. 14. Berlin.
1A Lipsk.
Price, J., 1992: Hellenistic and Roman Glass in Knossos.
Unexplored Mansion II. British School at Athens, Sup-
plementary Volume no. 21.
Richmond, E.T., 1931: A Rock-cut tomb at Nazareth. Quar-
terly Dept. Ant. Palestine 1.2.
GLASS BEADS
FROM IRON AGE
GRAVES IN
FINLAND
By Helena Ranta
The oldest glass beads found in Finland date
back to the Early Roman Iron Age (50-200
A.D.). Beads were, however, rare throughout
the Early Iron Age: there are only a few specimens
from the Early Roman Iron Age and a slightly higher
number from the Late Roman Iron Age (200-400
A.D.), while the Migration Period (400-600 A.D.)
shows a drop in these finds. Until the end of the
Migration Period beads were mainly of a single
colour and were made by winding. The dominant
colours are blue and green. The glass is translucent
or semi-translucent. Bead shapes vary, the most
common types being oval, cylindrical or barrel-
shaped. The material also includes several seg-
mented gold-foil beads.
From the 7th century onwards beads become
more common in graves, and begin to display a
greater diversity of forms and shapes. Typical beads
of the Merovingian Period (600-800 A.D.) are orange
specimens of barrel shape with opaque surfaces (fig.
la). Multi-coloured beads with line patterns, often
in chains, also become common at this stage (fig.
lb). The first millefiori-pattern beads make their
appearance in the Merovingian Period.
In the Viking Period (800-1050 A.D.) beads of
drawn glass rod became common. In the 9th cen-
tury, cylindrical beads cut straight off the rod (fig.
1c) were popular, and around the end of the century
segmented beads of one or several parts (fig. Id)
became common. Most of these beads are blue, but
there are also yellow and green specimens.
The number of beads was at its largest around
the end of the Viking Period, and decoration with
single-coloured or millefiori-patterned pieces of
glass becomes common. Beads with radial eye-pat-
terns, especially on a yellow ground (fig. le), are
popular at this time. Also common were specimens
with radial eye and chain patterns (fig. If). The
range of colours in beads decorated with single-

Fig 1. a. National Museum of
Finland (NM) 8723:744,
b. NM 9900:23,
c. NM 14196:409,
d. NM 14196:239, 18000:716,
e. NM 14196:294,
f NM 13962:165,
g. NM 14196:671,
h. NM 14196:252,
i. NM 8723:823,
j. NM 14196: 503, 532.
46 Glass Beads
coloured rhomboid pieces of glass is extensive: most
are yellow, but green, turquoise and brown variants
around the end of the Viking Period retained their
popularity in the ensuing Crusade Period (1050-
1150/1300 AD.). Variants with radial eye patterns
on a yellow ground figure especially prominantly in
Crusade-period finds. Translucent blue and yellow
so-called melon beads (fig. Ih) and segmented or
barrel-shaped gold-foil beads (fig. li) also belong
to this group. Crusade-period contexts have revealed
only a few specimens of glass-rod beads, which were
typical of the Viking Period.
One-piece wound oval blue beads occur through-
beads are usually difficult to distinguish in this ma-
terial. An example is the Ketohaka 6 cairn excavated
in 1916 by Alfred Hackman in Salo (Uskela). Burnt
bones and artefacts were strewn among the stones
eluded women’s grave-goods: several brooches,
but there were also a few black and reddish-brown
glass beads of opaque surface, and a gold-foil bead
(Schauman-Lonnqvist 1989:39-42).
cially around the end of the 10th century and at the
beginning of the 11th century (fig. lj).
Glass Beads from Iron Age Graves in Finland 47
make it impossible to distinguish individual burials.
However, beads are sometimes found in clusters of
up to several dozen specimens, as for example at
the Kalmumaki cemetery in Kalanti (dated to the
7th-10th centuries). Beads in a cluster or concen-
tration may originate from a single burial.
From the Merovingian Period onwards, inhuma-
tion burials begin to appear in Western Finland. In-
humation graves indicate that beads were almost ex-
clusively women’s ornaments. The few specimens
from clearly male graves have been found in purses
or pouches.
In most of the inhumation graves with beads their
original location cannot be discerned. The main rea-
son for this is the poor preservation of bone in Fin-
nish soils, but it may also be due to the effects of
frost and the imprecision of earlier excavation meth-
ods. In identified necklaces, the beads were strung
on a length yarn or a leather band. The number of
beads in necklaces varies from a few to almost two
hundred. In most cases, the necklaces have a sin-
gle thread, but there are also necklaces with sev-
eral threads of beads, even as many as four (e.g.
grave 39 of cemetery C at Kbylibnsaari in Kbylio).
Strung together with the beads were bronze spirals
and pendants of silver and bronze. The practice of
adding silver coins (usually Kufic, but also German
and Anglo-Saxon coins) began in the Viking Period,
and was most common around the end of the pe-
riod. The beads were worn around the neck; the
Swedish custom of suspending them from brooches
worn at the shoulders was not common in Finland.
Only a few possible dividers of strings of beads are
known from Finland (e.g. grave 319 at Luistari in
Grave C 4 at Kbylibnsaari contained a combina-
tion of ornaments typical of the end of the Viking
Period. The female corpse in the grave had a neck-
lace of 35 beads (fig. 2). These included yellow,
rated with single-coloured pieces of glass and multi-
mented glass beads, blue and yellow melon beads,
a blue glass bead with a band pattern, and a few
opaque glass beads. The necklace also included five,
possibly six, pendants of beaten silver and two Ara-
bian coins. At the shoulders of the corpse were
round convex-concave brooches affixed to a chain.
At the side of the body was an equal-armed brooch,
which may have been on the breast. At the waist
was a knife in a wide sheath, and on the wrists were
spiral bracelets (fig. 3).
Fig. 3. Woman's grave no. 4 of cemetery C at Kbylibnsaari
(Kjuloholm), Kbylio. The grave was oriented WSW-ENE,
and is dated to the early 11th century (Cleve 1978:24, fig.
Beads had other uses apart from necklaces. For
they were used a fringe or trim decoration in a cloak.
According to Cleve (1978:48) a bronze head orna-
ment with beads was found in grave 39 of cemetery
C at Kbylibnsaari in Kbylio. Beads have also been
found in a pot placed in a grave (e.g. Lehtosalo-
Hilander 1982a: 122). There are also cases where
glass beads were found scattered over the whole
surface of a grave (e.g. the Viking-period woman’s
grave V at Anivehmaanmaki, Ylane). Whether this
was done on purpose remains unclear.
Do Finnish Iron Age burials with beads then dif-
fer from ones without beads? On the basis of my
analysis of material from women’s graves at Luistari
in Eura, Anivehmaanmaki in Ylane and Kbylibnsaari
in Kbylib (all from the Late Iron Age) there are
hardly any differences between combinations of ar-
tefacts in graves with beads or in ones without beads.
These cemeteries contained 95 burials identifiable
48 Glass Beads
as female from their grave assemblages. Seventy per
cent of these contained beads. Only pendants and
coins clearly correlate with graves with beads. This
is natural since both pendants and coins are mostly
found in necklaces. Differences in sets of artefacts
can be observed among graves with and respectively
without beads within the cemeteries, but they do
not display any regularity.
both similarities and differences in relation to the
Finnish material (e.g. Arbman 1943; Callmer 1978;
Goldina & Koroleva 1983; L’vova 1968). Lehtosalo-
Hilander (1982b: 148) has suggested that in the later
stages of the Iron Age beads were imported directly
of this material in Finland and neighbouring areas.
In addition to glass beads, large numbers of
bronze beads have been discovered in Finland, usu-
ally in the same graves as glass beads. Some of the
bronze specimens display forms clearly similar to
glass beads, but there are also completely different
types. Bronze beads were most probably made in
Finland. The Finnish material also includes beads
Literature
Arbman. H„ 1943: Birka I. Di, Craier. Tafeln. Uppsala
Callmer. J.. 1977: Trade Beads and Bead Trade in Scan-
dinavia ca. 800-1000 A.D. Ada Archaahgica Lan-
Stria in 4". Nr. 11. Lund.
Cl”n'!!:: -1978: SkeI«4™«ten p4 Kjuloholm i Kjulo
II. Vikmgatid och korstSgstid. Gravfiltet C. Fiiuka
GoldZ"»	ТиЛ’*3а-П'.2. Helsingfors.
Goldina. R.D. & O.P. Koroleva. 1983: Rti«v
b!h p-u 1982a: 1 "»
L’vova ZA	A'^akauskirja 82:2. Helsinki.
T'pot;!	b“sy Stand Udogi Chast
teSenlement^Xlu^a’5 7™ent of Iron
Studies in Salo HI So Д" '°-км
49
THE INFLUX OF ORIENTAL BEADS INTO EUROPE DURING THE 8TH CENTURY A.D.	ing the use of beads in several parts of Europe. Great changes in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, especially from the sixth century onwards, make the picture seriously incomplete, and one that is heav- ily weighted towards parts of Western and North- ern Europe. A number of distinct areas with rather different bead spectra may be noted. We can dis- cern a Scandinavian, mainly Baltic area in the North (Hackman 1905; Kellmer 1969; Nerman 1935), a dis- tinct area in the heartland of the Reihengraber- zivilisation (Christlein 1966; Koch 1977; Roth & Theune-Vogt 1990), another one in the Carpathian Basin (Salamon et al. 1981), and so on. Amongst these beads we find many types for which we may suggest European production, and we can frequently argue for relatively local production. Some impor-
By Johan Callmer	tant recent observations on actual production sites from Frankish centres confirm these deductions (personal communication, Dr. T. Pannhuysen, Maastricht). Some of these beads, however, are Mediterranean imports. Amongst these, the cited as unquestionably imported from Byzantine workshops. This assumption is less certain now. Finds of millefiori rods in Ireland, Britain (Craddock
F | ^his contribution will focus upon the 1 importance of bead studies to our -Д- understanding of developments in long- distance trade and also (as so often) for centre- periphery relationships in the Old World. Despite the generally low standard of publication of bead finds, especially from the Early Medieval Period, it is now possible to assemble enough material for a reconstruction of major trends and changes in the beads from large areas of Europe and parts of Western Asia. Some important areas, however, are still deplorably obscure. For many who study the Early Medieval beads, our low standard of knowledge of beads in the Orient is a great problem, and we are particularly seriously hampered by our lack of knowledge of bead-production there. We desperately need more information about the techniques used (from production debris), and the organization and level of the production. For this paper it is only possible to approach the question from the other end and to make deductions about these matters from observations which it is Principally possible to make on the European find material. To begin with, it is necessary to go back to the Migration Period: the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. Bead finds allow us to draw conclusions concern-	1989:173f) and Scandinavia (Callmer & Henderson 1991; Nasman 1979), the latter in fact slightly later, clearly indicate that rods were used there for inlays on metal jewellery and for the production of beads. Where the rods themselves were produced is un- certain; some of them may have been imported from Italy or further afield. More certain imports are the drawn silver and gold foil segment beads (Bohner 1958:71f). They were most probably produced some- where in the Byzantine provinces of the Near East and are found in all parts of the Reihengraber terri- tory. They disappear from this area completely around 600 A.D. (ibid.). Similar observations can be made on the material from the Carpathian Basin. In the north, in Scandinavia, these beads appear in small numbers, and there too they disappear rap- idly, perhaps even before the end of the sixth cen- tury (based on an examination of the collection of the State Historical Museum, Stockholm). After the beginning of the seventh century they seem to be totally absent from Western, Central and Northern Europe. With the present state of knowledge, this change cannot be linked to the Muslim conquest of the Eastern part of the Byzantine Empire but rather to the Byzantino-Persian wars of the beginning of the seventh century. In 619 A.D., the Asian prov- inces of the Empire were completely overrun and taken into the hands of the Persians.
50 Glass Beads
During the seventh century, the beads in Central,
Western and Northern Europe hardly comprise
types which we have to regard as oriental imports
(c£ Arrhenius 1960; Petre 1984:61ff; Theune-Vogt
1990). Beads were in continuous production in all
of these areas. Glass metal was traded North from
the Mediterranean but there was no trade in orien-
In the late seventh century or around 700 A.D., a
quite abrupt and very strong rise in evidence of
exchange and trade can be seen in the lower Rhine
and Maas area, in the Channel area, along the Eng-
lish east coast, along the North-Sea coast and in
South-western Scandinavia and the Baltic Region.
For most of these areas of Europe, this important
development did not mean any rise in bead-produc-
tion and trade in beads. For Northern Europe it did,
however, mean a change in bead-output. Here we
meet a new bead spectrum heavily dominated by
blue transparent and white opaque beads. Decora-
tion favours white and red (Petre 1984:62). This
output, which is mostly of a high quality, features
such complicated techniques as the cable technique
(reticella) (Callmer & Henderson 1991; Nasman
1979). The glass metal for this Northern European
bead-production was imported as cullet, tesserae
and millefiori rods from the south-west, perhaps
from Byzantine territory in Northern Italy.
We have been looking at conditions in Western,
Central and Northern Europe. In Eastern Europe
things developed differently. There were contacts
between the Mediterranean and Central Asia
through the steppe zone as far north as the wood-
land zone. Although this relationship can be traced
rom Central Russia (e.g. Gorjunova 1961:69 & 92)
“ ‘S ab°Ve a" “the basi" of the Kama
of dirpp, Г Ж "umcrous striking indications
nirp ^t « 'nd‘reCt bnks wilb the Byzantine Em-
bren tae<HSan'ant t”’ Ма”У °f these Bnds have
been dated too early, but it is wrong to place them
aU in the late eighth century. Best known are the
°' high-'luali'y Byzantine and
foil beads and soianS 7 .?rds include silver
"’'ongerconWngoWfoabut^^^s
is covered in brownish or yellowish glass (Deopik
1961). The visual effect can be surprisingly similar
to gold foil, but in some cases it gives a very coarse
appearance.
For the eighth century, we can note that there
are further connections between these areas in the
North-eastern corner of Europe and the West. Many
belts of the Nevolino type have been found in Fin-
land and there are also finds in the intermediate
areas. There is even one find of an Nevolino belt
from Central Sweden (Callmer 1990:22). As far as
we can see, this undeniable east-west link did not
bring oriental beads into Northern Europe before
the second half of the eighth century.
It has been suggested that these Byzantine and
oriental finds in Eastern Europe were the result of
indirect trade via the nomads of the Eastern Euro-
pean steppes (Bulgars and Turks) (Balint 1990:10).
This is not the place to enter into a full discussion
of these problems. The massive occurrence of ori-
ental beads in the graves of the Finno-Ugrian popu-
lation of the forest steppe and forest zones could
instead be interpreted in terms of more direct trade
with traders from the south. It is quite possible that
this trade was not the only promoter of trade goods
in this part of Europe. The finds of Sassanian and
Byzantine coins in the area could also be discussed
in this context.
The political collapse of the Sassanian Empire and
the subsequent Arab take-over of this territory and
the Eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire evi-
dently did not put an end to traditional trade links
with the North, which presumably followed the
Volga northwards as well as running from Khwa-
rezm to the upper reaches of the Belaja river and
from there to the Kama basin.
This review of the conditions in Eastern Europe
shows us that the economic structures, in which the
production of oriental beads was a part, did not col-
lapse with the Arab conquest. On the contrary, the
shift from gold foil to silver foil is to be regarded as
a rather self-confident lowering of production costs,
indeed the silver foil is often only spread on the seg-
ment beads very thinly and patchily. During the
ighth century we can also see a tendency towards
, e sta”Jydization of types in the production of
oeaas rhis is notable in the case of both the seg-
ment beads and the millefiori beads (this can be seen
□1У’ iacnnSta.nce’ a comPanson between Erddlyi et
L vov Й E2 level in Staraja Ladoga; see
fnr aii j ‘ К1S uncertain if this summary holds
mainbS U?l°n °f beads in the area since it is
mamly derived from beads which were exported into
The Influx of Oriental Beads into Europe during the 8th Century A.D. 51
® о • •
Fig. 1. Oriental beads typical of the eastern and northern diffusion route.
adjacent or distant territories. We may, however, con-
clude that workshops producing beads for export
standardized their production and probably in-
creased production substantially. Any estimate of
how great the increase was can only be very vague,
but it is reasonable to think in the range of tenfold if
not more.
The economy of the Caliphate was from its be-
ginning quite a strong one, combining the resources
of the Sassanian Empire, major parts of the Byzan-
tine Empire, and, up to the later eighth century, of
large further territories in North Africa and on the
Iberian Peninsula. Particularly forceful economic
growth began in the Caliphate after the removal of
the Omayyad dynasty and the accession of the
Abbasids in 751 A.D. (Lassner 1980). It is, however,
not only in the Caliphate but perhaps even more
clearly outside the Caliphate that we can note these
changes. The spread of Arab coined silver, mainly
to Eastern and Northern Europe (Noonan 1980) but
also into the Indian Ocean area, is a good example.
It is indeed very stimulating to juxtapose these two
categories of export from the Caliphate: the coins
and the beads. The coins were doubtless paid in a
manner which suggests that the counterpart was
aware of the worth of the metal. It is possible that
the buyer of the commodity for which the dirhams
were exchanged paid a low price, but the important
thing is that the transaction was more or less of the
same type as those normally going on in the
Caliphate. The export of beads, the production costs
of which were very low, strikes us immediately as
an example of a very unequal relationship and as a
typical centre-periphery relation. Do these two cat-
egories of exports represent two very different trad-
ing systems?
During the second half of the eighth century, the
number of imported oriental beads in Eastern and
Northern Europe rises steadily.
They appear to be almost totally dominant in the
finds in Mordovia (Materialnaja kultura Sredne-
Cninskoj Mordvy VIII-XI w. 1969). Further to the
North-west, finds are few and scattered. We must
look to the very far North-west, to the Ilmen Basin
(e.g. Islanova 1984; Leontev 1986) and especially to
Staraja Ladoga on the lower Volchov river (L’vova
1968; Rjabinin 1982). Here we already find a clear
dominance of oriental beads in layers dendro-
chronologically dated to the 760’s. They entered the
Baltic Region from the east, to appear in Finland,
the Aland Islands and Central Sweden. They subse-
quently spread south along the west coast of the
Baltic to reach Southern Scandinavia. This was a
rapid process. Although an exact estimate of the time
involved is as yet impossible, it could have been a
period of only some ten to twenty years, perhaps
less.
From this period we find bead sets in Scandina-
via with a mixed composition of local and oriental
beads. There was at first only limited influence upon
Scandinavian production, but the latter gradually
dwindled away and by the end of the century only a
few forms of local production remained. A remark-
able exception to this trend is the island of Gotland
(collections of the State Historical Museum, Stock-
holm and Gotlands fornsal, Visby). Oriental beads
came to Gotland but were only accepted to a cer-
tain, limited extent in the local dress conventions.
Oriental beads were obviously traded at trading
places on the coast like Paviken (material made avail-
able to the author by courtesy of the late Dr. P.
dominant, but they did not penetrate in quantity into
the culturally rigid Gotlandic society.
At Staraja Ladoga and in the Ilmen basin, the ori-
ental beads appear with a certain admixture of
Scandinavian beads (cf. above). This could allow us
to suspect that the whole assemblage came from the
West rather than from the East. This, however, is
not very likely. If we look more closely at the quali-
tative properties of these oriental beads we can ob-
serve that there are several distinct types which are
52 Glass Beads
Fie- Z Hu diffusion routes of oriental beads 'a. 760-8S0 A.D.
otdy found in the Orient, in Eastern Europe and in
the Baltic region (Callmer 1991:32) (fig n They
«7baped silverfoil beads, millefiori
gS^p^ZSS.
bradsa“hil,addCrd ligh‘ ?ordeau,«:°loured spherical
beads. In addition to these glass beads we should
Northern Europe alone an Jam Places in
“ raised го-
from the Orient The mm ₽ a^portation of beads
Mages in Northern Eurooebd'110" °f.bead assem‘
beads went dir«tl„ m X “l'S thal masses »f
priate to add a very direct ™ °"' “ "°w appr<"
of'bis model of dislocation. AlTEX^mS
"—..6	ин uie coasts or rue Baltic, mciuarng
otaraja Ladoga, have yielded large numbers of de-
fective oriental beads. By defective. I mean beads
which could not be put on a string to be worn as a
necklace. In fact in many places the percentage of
defective oriental beads is greater than that of the
-;	masses oi oeads were sorted at tne
trading places, which also means that the beads were
™North insacks °rin similar emballage
U01U..33). The sophistication of this aspect of the
trading process is remarkable.
СетгаГ131??''8 simultaneous|y reached Western,
АНЬ “ V .  was probably Of slightly later date,
it s a d!!C °f around 800 A-0- '"ay be too late.
' reas°nable to place it nn Р9Г|;Дг	last
The Influx of Oriental Beads into Europe during the 8th Century A.D. 53
the oriental beads characteristic of the eastern in-
flux do not occur in this later flow and there are some
types which do not occur in the East. It has some-
times been argued that these beads only spread to
the Slavonic groups in Central Europe and the Bal-
kans. This can hardly be right. They are found eve-
rywhere where burial customs which allowed the use
of grave goods were still practised. This is clear in
parts of Central Germany (e.g. Schwarz 1984:33), in
Saxony (Wegewitz 1968), and in Frisia (Schmid
1972). They are also found in the heartland of the
Carolingian Realm (Schwarz 1984:32).
In conclusion we may maintain that large parts of
Europe were inundated with oriental beads in the
second half of the eighth century. These reached
their destination along two different routes: one an
eastern route, which began to function a little ear-
lier than a western route, which may be up to a gen-
eration later (fig. 2).
The dominance of oriental beads continues in the
first half of the ninth century, and it is not until the
second half of that century that local beads reappear
in large numbers in Northern Europe, including
North-western Russia. Over much of Eastern Europe
they continue to dominate for many centuries, al-
though local production in the oriental tradition may
have been of some importance, for instance in the
Bulgar towns. From the second half of the ninth cen-
The influx of oriental beads can definitely be
linked to the economic and political rise of the
Caliphate to be the dominant power in the Old World
in the second half of the eighth century. It also de-
monstrates one trade method used by the Muslims
in contact with the periphery well. This is a method
with a long history. Related methods were used by
Greek traders in the Black Sea Region as early as
the sixth century B.C. (Ostroverchov 1981:214ff).
The appearance of these oriental beads over much
of the Carolingian realm demonstrates beyond doubt
that the trade in petty trinkets like beads reached
the Occident from the Orient before Charlemagne
was crowned Emperor and the interest in contact
with the East began to grow. It also demonstrates
that the trade in these cheap beads is quite at odds
with the idea that all trade between the West (and
the North) and the East was an administered trade,
exclusively in very expensive luxuries such as silk,
spices, drugs and gold (Duby 1976; Pirenne 1938).
We may finally note that the production of the
very types of oriental beads that we have discussed
here stops some time in the middle or in the sec-
ond half of the ninth century. These were difficult
times for the Central parts of the Caliphate. The
devasting, prolonged slave revolt of the Zandj con-
tributed significantly to a recession in Iraq, and
Baghdad never afterwards recovered its preemi-
nent importance. We do not yet know whether the
oriental beads were produced there or elsewhere,
but it is likely that these events are somehow re-
lated. An argument for the Central parts of the
Caliphate is the appearance of related glass arte-
facts at the palace of Samarra, ca. 110 km upstream
the Tigris from Baghdad.
Literature
Andrae, R., 1975: Mosaikaugenperlen. Untersuchungen
Millefioriperlen in Europa. Acta Praehistorica et
Arrhenius, B., 1960: En vendeltida smyckeuppsattning.
Fornvannen, 55. Stockholm.
Bdlint, Cs., 1990: Gedanken liber den Handel und
“Handel" im 7. Jh. in den osteuropaischen Steppen.
A Wosinsky M6r Muzeum fivkonyve, 19. Szekszdrd.
Bohner, K., 1958: Die frankischen Altertiimer des Trier
Landes. Germanische Denkmaler der Volkerwan-
Callmer. J., 1990: The beginning of the Easteuropean
gion in the eighth and ninth centuries AD. A Wosinsky
M6r Muzeum fcvkdnyve, 19. Szekszdrd.
-1991: Beads as a criterion of shifting trade and exchange
connections. Studien zur Sachsenforschung, Bd 7.
Hildesheim.
- & J. Henderson. 1991: Glassworking at Ahus, S. Swe-
den (eighth century A.D.). Laborativ arkeologi, 5.
Stockholm.
Christlein, R., 1966: Das alamannische Reihengraberfeld
von Marktoberdorf im Allgau. Materialhefte zur
bayerischen Vorgeschichte, 21. Miinchen.
Craddock. P.T., 1989: Metalworking techniques. In:
Youngs, S. (ed.): The work of angels: masterpieces of
Celtic metalwork 6th-9th centuries A.D. London.
Darkevich, V.P., 1976: Chudozhestvennyj metall Vostoka.
Moskva.
Deopik. V.B., 1961: Klassifikacija bus Jugo-vostochnoj
Evropy VI-1X vv. Sovetskaja archeologija, 1961:3.
Duby, G.. 1973: Guerriers et paysans. Paris.
Erd61yi. L. E. Ojtozi & V.F. Gening, 1969: Das Graberfeld
von Nevolino. Archaeologia Hungarica, S.N. XLVI.
Budapest.	........
Gening V.E, 1962: Mydlan-shaj. Udmurtsku mogilmj VIII-
IX vv. Voprosy archeologii Urala, vyp. 3. Sverdlovsk.
54 Glass Beads
Etnidisskis processy aa Urals i v Sibiri v psrvabylav'a
Goijunova, E.I..
Hildesheim.
ostlichen Franken zwischen Steigerwald, Frankenwald
und Oberpfalzer Wald. Mainz.
Helsingfors.
Islanova, I.V., 1984: Archeologicheskie pamjatniki konca
I- nachala II tysjaceletija n.e. pri slijanii rek Polonucha
i Popovka. Kratkie soobshchenija Instituta archeologii
AN SSSR, vyp. 179. Moskva.
Kellmer, I.. 1969: Jemalderens perlemateriale i Vest-Norge.
(Magisterthesis) Bergen. (MS).
Koch. U., 1977: Das Reihengraberfeld bei Schretzheim.
Germanische Denkmaler der Volkerwanderungszeit,
Kleine Schriften aus dem Vorgeschichtlichen Semi-
nar der Philipps-Universitat Marburg, 33. Marburg.
Wegewitz, W.. 1968: Reihengraberfriedhofe und Funde aus
Lassner.J., 1980: The shaping of Abbasid rule. Princeton.
Leont ev, A.E., 1986: Volzhskobaltijskij torgovyj putv IX
L vova, Z., 1968: Stekljannye busy Staroj Ladogi. Chast I.
Archeologicheskij sbornik, 10. Leningrad.
Materialnaja kultura Sredne-Cninskoj Mordvy VHI-XI vv.
Stockholm.
Noonan, T., 1980: When and how dirhams first reached
Russia. A numismatique critique of the Pirenne theory.
Cahiers du Monde russe et sovietique, XXI. Paris.
Nasman. U., 1979: Die Herstellung von Glasperlen. In:
Bencad. M.: Wikingerzeitliches Handwerk in Ribe.
Bine Ubersicht. Acta Archsolagica, sol. 49. Ke-
p " r lao. 7 7 arcneoiogija, 1981:4. Moskva.
i LXta !isk°	M

10. Wien. '	’
Schmid. P„ 1972: Zur Datieru
' (1980), H. 1-
Vittmund. Neue
55
THE TRADITIONAL USE OF MAGIC GLASS BEADS IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD	can kill any living thing and destroy inanimate ob- jects. The evil eye idea tries to explain and simplify a complex and unyielding reality and to explain events that have a negative influence on people’s Evil-eye beads are used as single beads, as part of jewellery or as a part of amulets and talismans. They are used as decoration on clothes, bags, belts, purses, and cosmetic purses. They are also found on harnesses and riding equipment for camels, horses, donkeys, and on ploughs and farm tools. Amulets have the greatest power when worn vis- ibly, as the first glance or hint of an evil eye is the most powerful. Thus the bead or amulet will catch and absorb the first powerful glance and make it possible to withstand the second and weaker glance. For centuries, people in areas with few or no vet- erinary doctors have resorted to such traditional
By Torben Sode	safeguards. The beads are hung round the neck of cows, goats, and other domestic animals to protect them from illness. Nursing mothers and their unbaptized children in particular, but also small children in general, are susceptible to the power of evil eyes. They need special protection. Even today you will find evil-eye beads hanging over children’s cradles and beds, and blue beads or evil-eye beads are often included in presents to the newborn child.
I "Ven today people use glass beads as amulets Г1 and talismans throughout the Mediterranean J—/area, in the Near East, and in Africa where Islam is the main religion. In Islamic culture, both glass beads and other materials from the decorative tradition are used, and the ornaments very often take on the character of amulets, worn to prevent bewitchment and for pro- tection from illness and evil... The purpose of an amulet is to fascinate people with its beauty and thus catch their first glance. In this way the amulet will absorb the first and most dangerous effect of the evil eye. It can also prevent evil, illness and death. The amulet meets the ancient need for protection against bad events over which Man has no influence. The best known and most widespread amulet and talisman bead is the evil-eye bead which was traditionally used for protection against evil eyes. This kind of bead is often a blue glass bead with eyes of several colours attached to it. Other colours than blue exist, and these beads are produced in many shapes and sizes. The most important function of the beads is to attract and neu- tralize the force of the evil eye, a concept which is old and widespread: i.e. that some people have a certain magic power in their eyes. The evil power	In Spain, children are protected from evil eyes with small pieces of glass: in Italy they wear glass crystals for protection. The Greeks and the Cypri- ots wear an oval piece of glass resembling the hu- man eye. In East Africa, ordinary pieces of glass are the best protection. In Jerusalem you can find glass-bracelets built into the wall over the front door to prevent the first glance of strangers. Everywhere people believe that glass in itself has a magic power against the evil eye. Glass or fragments of glass are used as parts of amulets and talismans and the blue beads are well known and in common use. The hand, the number five, phallic symbols, and horseshoes are also used as protection against evil eyes. The Turks and the Greeks neutralize evil eyes with animal horns, horn symbols or pieces of cattle- or deerhorn. The peacock feather and the cawne mussel are symbols of the eye and they, too, give very strong protection. On fishing boats and ships it is common practice to paint a protecting eye on th Thetroubles of everyday life, such as the butter failing to churn, the bread failing, the thread not spinning, the harvest failing etc., are all explained by the evil eye and protection is necessary in the household.
56 Class Beads
p-PT ? 7 1S als0 “sed as a warni"S bead.
People believe that they will have had luck if some
°'*e,lr ,beads break. И this happens to you. you
need to be on the look-out.
spSffc colou °fh °'°Kr has alS0 been im|,or,ant -
ilSes inne e een con"«ted with certain
cdour Ы. °rga”S’ °r ’arious el™ents. The
colour blue gives particularly strong protection
In general, all beads are considered to give pro-
tection and for some the colour has a purpose, too.
In Jordan, big, round, bright yellow beads are
called jaundice beads and dark green beads pro-
tect you from bile diseases. Red and reddish
brown beads are used in connection with the cir-
culatory system and the female reproductive or-
gans. Women wear opal, milky white glass beads
The traditional use of Magic Glass Beads in the Islamic World 57
Fig. 4. Traditional Anatolian glass beadmakers producing evil-eye beads in a small, primitive, clay furnace.
in a string or just a single bead on the breast to aid
in nursing.
In ancient Persia, turquoise beads were known
as horse beads; both the genuine turquoise which
the upper classes used as harness decoration and
the glazed turquoise bead made of clay, faience or
glass traditionally used in harness decorations. The
beads protected the horses from illness and limps
etc., but they were also used in the riding-gear to
protect the rider himself.
The traditional use of beads in connection with
Literature
Dundes, A., 1981: The Evil Eye. A Folklore Casebook. New
Eisen, G.A., 1916: The Characteristics of the Eye Beads
from the Earliest Times to Present. American Jour-
nal of Archaeology 2.d series, no. 20.
Erikson, J.M., 1969: The Universal Bead. New York.
Kriss, R. & H. Kris-Heinrich, 1962: Volksglaube im Bereich
des Islam, bd. 1-2. Wiesbaden.
Maloney, C. (ed.), 1976: The Evil Eye. New York.
beads are now found as decoration on the rear-view
mirror in cars and busses. To this very day you will
not find many truck-drivers in the eastern part of
the Mediterranean who will get into their cabs with-
out the protection of evil-eye beads.
59
BEADS IN
THE ARCTIC
for almost every European bead, names which might
originally have been given to beads made in the Arc-
tic long before the European contact.
By Keld Hansen
suluarpalaat
kittukkaat
angilertaat
qiwnneetaat
small round beads
small cylindrical beads
thicker beads
the largest beads
twisted beads
Talking about beads used in Greenland these days
we often think about the beadwork which belongs
for instance to the women's national dress. These
gigantic collars have only been used from the be-
ginning of our century while the history of beads in
the Arctic covers about four thousand years, and
beads may have been known as long as people have
lived around the Polar Circle. When Stone-age Eu-
he Greenlandic word for bead, sapangaq,
seems to be an old Inuit word. It is mostly
used in the plural, sapangat, which could be
a small ornament of beads made of bone, tusk, wood
or stone, but the word sapangat is still used when
talking about imported beads made of glass from
The word may come from the verb sapangipaa,
which means something slipping out of your hand.
The word sapangaassat means bladder wrack, and
saputit is a dam, a dike, or just a row of stones in a
river where Inuit made barriers for trout fishing.
On the east coast of Greenland in the late 19th
century, the women mentioned beads, nuisassat, a
word still used in West Greenland as nuissivoq,
which means to string beads, and they had names
Fig 1. Two girls from Westgreenland around 1910 when
>he beadcollars quickly became larger and larger.
Fig. 2. Beads from the Saqqaq culture about 1400-500 B.C.
ropeans adorned themselves with beads of amber,
and at the time when Egyptians and Mesopotamians
began to make beads of glass, the first Inuit hunt-
ing-families crossed the Arctic from Alaska, through
Canada to Greenland.
Archaeological beads have still not been found
from the time of the very first immigrations to
Greenland, i.e. the Independence Culture dating
back to about 2600 B.C. From the following period,
i e the Saqqaq culture about 1400-500 B.C., a tiny
round and flat bead of soapstone is kept in the eth-
60 Glass Bmds
Fig. 3. Gretnlaadic btad ofbrnufrm „ Nmf
bell made by a Greenlander.
C*ct'°"sJ" lhe Museum in
Copenhagen. A drop-shaped bead from the same
period is now in Stockholm: it was found in West
^bytheSwedishExpediUontoG^d
small skin bags	Ь'е” kept
have thought like their d^nd??4?,l!eOple may
land until our lime that a bead ЬД1EaSt Gree"‘
feet, because the iX Ы 3 Prot«ting ef-
o<^X^d-^at chains
Inuit groups of central Canada ед₽!С1а у amon8 the
Rasmussen found	,ate as 1924- Knud
such chains, and m4yof thesemm,U' 5“" Wari"8
the National Muse™ tor" now be at
many examples, such as a	There are
caUed Qaqortinneq •„ r toV ’ woma"
unborn son: the head and fr.n\ ? ,ect her coming,
"take him a fas,TO"W
”й-ь-*1Хз
foot would make him a good fisherman; the head of
a hare would give him a short and handsome nose-
the skin of the ermine would make him a good and
enduring runner, and the head, stomach and foot of
a raven would give him many hunting shares.
A chain of polar bear teeth from a hunter's own
catch gave him strength and staying power, while
teeth from a musk ox worn around the neck inside
the skin-dress meant luck in musk ox huntings to
From archaeological finds from the Thule culture
about 1200-1700 A.D. there are series of beads of
different forms and materials from the whole Inuit
area, and many of these are quite identical with
beads from Siberia. Alaska. Canada, and Greenland.
Teeth from polar bear, fox, dog, seal, whale, and
reindeer are found with a small hole in each as well
as beads made of different stones, shells, bones from
birds, and foxes and otoliths (ear stones) from fish.
This seems to show that Inuit people originally
wore only a single or a few beads. It may gradually
have become common to wear them in chains round
the neck, wrist or waist. The fact that the Thule peo-
ple especially made and used increasing numbers
of beads may have been the result of many factors.
One reason may be that it is in this period that for
the first time we find the bow drill in the archaeo-
logical excavations. The technique of shaping a
small bead by cutting and polishing the material was

Beads in the Arctic 61
Fig. 5. The bow drill.
nothing unusual in Inuit material culture, but to
make the tiny hole is in truth the really difficult part.
The bow drill is composed of a bow made of ant-
ler, wood or an animal rib with a strap of seal skin.
The drill itself is made of bone or wood with a point
of stone or metal, and a mouth piece which is held
between the teeth.
The archaeological evidence from the Arctic tells
us that the Inuit had a tradition of making and using
beads before the Europeans brought coloured beads
of glass in for trade. On the east coast of Greenland
a special kind of bead was in use when the first Eu-
ropean expeditions and the whalers appeared.
The East Greenlanders made strings of thoracic
vertebrae from ammassat, the small fish called
capelin. They were either white or dark, coloured
in blood. Most beads were made of animal bone or
teeth strung on sinew thread, not only for men and
womens’ dress, but also fixed to many tools and
other implements such as kayaks, knives etc. They
might be only for decoration, but they often served
practical purposes, for instance as a “bait” on a fish-
ing line or a bird trap.
Both women and men sometimes had small beads
strung to their hair. The men in East Greenland had
headbands, armrings and shoulder straps of seal-
skin with beads.
Some beads were carved as small figurines, e.g.
seals, foxes, birds and other animals, and sometimes
jwo or more connected beads in a chain were carved
•rom the same piece of bone or tusk.
From the west coast, the missionary Poul Egede
wrote in his diary that when travelling with his fa-
r к 'n 17.25, he met two women who wore strings
° beans in their hair and around their necks and
rms The women told the missionaries that they
ad found them in a wrecked ship. The Europeans
laughed at them and said that they usually had beans
for their meals. They offered real beads of glass in
exchange for the beans, but the women replied they
found it practical to have this kind of jewelery, which
could be eaten if they were starving.
From the 17th century, it is told that some Euro-
pean whalers found a Greenlandic kayak hunter
stealing and locked him in a cabin. In the dark room
he found a muzzle loader and gunpowder, but he
could not find any bullets. So he poured some glass
beads which he had actually stolen down the gun’s
barrel and shot the door open.
The following little song was probably known all
over Greenland, and it may originate from the Eu-
ropean whaling period in the 17th century:
My aunt, buy beads for me
select the cheapest ones
select those with the narrow holes
I wish I could select them myself
select beads myself.
Fig. 6. Eastgreenlandic strings of thoracic vertebrae from
the small fish ammassat.
62 Glass Btads
..	“«**u1Cus or tnousanas years ago,
me times we are working with a very recent past.
Gree tnoa- abandoned settlement Kangeq near the
Beads in the Arctic 63
Fig. 9. The settlement Kangeq, painted about 1860 by the famous greenlandic artist Aron. Apollo and Susanne lived in one
of the small houses.
Greenland, one finds a two-metre midden telling us
that people lived there for many generations.
In 1968, archaeologists from the National Museum
worked at Kangeq. They had just removed the turf
when a lot of tiny, coloured glassbeads appeared
among a few crumbled pieces of wood. Suddenly they
heard laughter behind them, coming from an old man
and woman, Apollo and Susanne, the former catechists.
In 1936, they had their house at this point, and
she had lost her wooden box with all her beads on
her way home from the shop. They had never since
been able to find them, but now the archaeologists
had, thirty-two years later.
In Greenland today, most of the young candidates
for confirmation wear their personal “traditional”
dress, and many of them have outgrown a number
of dresses during childhood. Many brides still use
a similar dress as a wedding gown, which they also
use in church at Easter, Whitsun, Christmas and for
the more important family feasts. It would be nice if
this tradition continued, in which case a lot of Euro-
pean beads will be needed in the future.
Theme 2:
Beads - methods of analysis
67
THE SCIENTIFIC
ANALYSIS OF
GLASS BEADS
By Julian Henderson
The chemical components of glass
In chemically analysing glass and glass beads what
exactly are we finding that sometimes causes the
glass to be chemically finger-printed to the place and
time of its manufacture?
Two major components of a high proportion of
ancient glasses are an alkali (such as soda) and
silica, with a third common component being cal-
cium oxide. The alkali used occurred natural as a
mineral (usually what is known as an evaporite), or
alternatively as plants which were ashed. Silica
sources were either sand or ground quartz (Hen-
derson 1985). When introduced into the glass melt,
alkalis and silica were associated with specific im-
purities. These impurities show us that different raw-
material sources have been used, even if we are not
always able to locate their exact geographical loca-
tion (ibid.). Relatively low levels of magnesia (MgO)
and aluminia (А120з), for example, can effect both
the durability and the working properties of the
glass, so impurities can be important. These could
be introduced as impurities respectively in the al-
kali and the silica, and the relative levels of both
magnesium and aluminium oxides can help to chemi-
The aim of this paper is to show how the use of
scientific techniques to investigate glass
beads can answer a series of interrelated
archaeological questions.
There are several possible archaeological ques-
tions about glass beads that scientific analysis can
help to answer. Amongst these are:
1.	What rawmaterials are the beads made of?
(i.e.what kind of glass?)
2.	What colours the glass?
3.	Is there a link between chemical composition and
bead-type?
4.	Is there a link between chemical composition and
the date of the bead manufacture?
5.	Seen in a broad context, can we relate chemical
composition to production centres, and on the
basis of which one can we build up bead distri-
bution patterns? In other words can we chemi-
cally fingerprint the glass to a period and region
of production?
6-	Can the composition of the glass beads be rela-
ted to that of other glass artefacts, such as win-
dows or vessels?
In this paper I am going to discuss all these as-
pects, with the exception of the compositional links
between beads and other glass artefacts.
Fig. 1. A sample of opaque white glass photographed with a
scanning elecinn microscope. The picture shows clusters of
tin oxide crystals (white) suspended in a high lead oxide
glass There is a mtieable variation in the size of the bubbles.
cally characterize ancient glass to a particular period
^Translucent glasses can be coloured by low lev-
els of mineral-rich colorants (Henderson 1985).
Cobalt oxide, for example, can impart a deep blue
colour to glass at levels as low as 0-05% in the soda-
lime-silica glass used in Roman and Early Medieval
68 Glass Beads
Europe, so obviously its levels must be controlled carefully; excessive cobalt oxide effectively produces a ‘black’ (deep translucent) glass. Other colorants of mineral origin (such as copper and manganese oxides) may not be as powerful, but their levels also need to be carefully controlled, as does the atmos- phere in the glass-making furnace. The proportion of oxygen available to the glass melt can change the oxidation state of the colorants in glass (i.e. the col- orant ions) and this can have a marked effect on the overall hue of the final glass. For example, a combi- nation of manganese and iron in medieval potassium- rich glass produces a range of colours including blue, green, purple and yellow simply by changing the oxidising-reducing conditions (but not its chemical composition) during its manufacture (Sellner et al. Opaque glass, which is often used in the decora- tion of glass beads, is rendered opaque by a disper- sion of minute crystals in the translucent glass ma- trix (fig. 1). The light is stopped from passing through the glass by the crystals reflecting and re- fracting the light as it enters the glass. The opacifying agents, as they are called, can either be added to the glass and dispersed through the glass (such as tm oxide which causes a white colour) or the crystals are developed out of the molten glass by heat treating the glass (such as cuprous oxide which causes an opaque red colour). A fourth kind of material which was used to alter Ле appearance of glass is decolorising agents, of which manganese oxide is an example. These com- pounds neutralise any colour that may be present Гот" ? ₽faIe Г"" hUe fr°m Ле bnpXs commonly found in sand.	UMlntrM-t.	^--«ilXitnbuLonmechnnlarn': Co^oo- SiWJ#reh7”	' Ware-	1 h'«'»'chy ; Fig. 2 Schematic plan of the links between various processes stages at which they can be charactericed <asterisked). survive in which semi-fused raw materials adhere, as at Dunmisk, Co. Tyrone, Ireland where the glass was certainly being modified using raw materials. Moulds for making glass beads can also survive, sometimes with glass or failed glass beads adher- ing. Dribbles and other glass-working debris such as reticella rods (bichrome cables) and tesserae also provide us with evidence for glass-working. Failed beads, if sufficiently preserved to be able to identify the type being manufactured, are. of course, essential when trying to reconstruct a beadmaking industry. Finally, the association of beads on necklaces can be a reflection of the varia- tion in chemical composition of the batch raw mate- rials used assuming the beads were manufactured at the same time. One instance where this could be found is when the beads have specifically been made
Evidence of production and bead-use LL^nerSta“d the means of Production the »be“XTo^°MlfthePrOd’,C,ioni,ro“sshaa produ£ °” ’ f“11	°f byproducts and Fjeure 2 is a schematic plan of the links between chemically analysed and for which as a " “n-! “XX™ ma'eS,f™ probably do so if fused „ s) sur™« it would fused glass. MXoX Ve уT'o”^	W making site, where glass for bp J	°n a glass‘	tor the funeral ritual, or at least remained associ- ated on the same string and then buried as origi- nally strung with the individual for whom they were made. Such an association is probably present at the cany iron Age cemetery of Wetwang Slack. East Yorkslure. England (Dent 1982; Henderson 1987). Bead-type, date and composition ch^tin;es il is.P°ssible to relate bead-type to chpm*CaiComposition - and sometimes a change in cnnHnnaifTPOsition occurs but the bead-type Г be manufa«“red unchanged. Examples ° . °,“ °'‘hesa situations can be found amongst the XtUrv В c°l ‘° ,Г0П Brita!n <5Л bead mJ lSt Ce”,Ury A-0 ’- Here a specific eye 1978 н de.aftIer the second century B.C. (Guido . class 3, the Hanging Langford type) can easily
The Scientific analysis of glass beads 69
70 Glass Beads
. .bird technique is scanning-electron
destructive.	o[ the sample is produced
microscopy. Here apic	fte sample;
by scanning an ele	orphology and the
variation tn ^ ^есГп be photographed. The
composmonotthes^^	{or	d	g
here is that the opaqu	cenlury B.C.
for the eye Jecora“°“ese oxide levels than in the
contains higher mang	d before the 2nd
white glass used for eye decor	because
сеП1иГУ * mdd^was introduced in the base glass
manganese oxide w _pnturv B.C. onwards in
used from the,sec0.nlis °„ctke carried through
significant levels andtos^»'	glass
into the ma-?»^»f Indirectly this
used for this bean u . icaj composition
-watershed" in the change	a
‘ inductively Coupled riasm*^”*-Spectroscopy
scopy OCPS) and Atom p()arger sampies
(AAS) both require * . nalysisandscanmng-
thanforelectron-probe mcrmmaW	be dis_
electron microscopy, an the P retrieved
solved for analysis mid therefore
XhaXfcrelnHeyworthetal.^.Tbe
sample is removed from the bead, mounted in epoxy
____J —Г.окоЛ (Hpnrlprsnn	This
the electron beam on the area to be analysed, and
see the area of glass to be analysed as well. Up to
twenty or more samples can be mounted on the same
block for analysis; the technique is virtually non-
zi^aagdwratedgl^ss beads. This Qpeofbead was
Sectored at least as ear^ asfce
^^manufactured
=“b»“ts
secondcentury B.C in the same way as in the eye
beads (see fig 3b) - so again the chemical compos
^Kteglasscanbeusedas^in^
the date of a specific bead type, zig-zag decorated
beads (ibid.).
Techniques of analysis
A range of scientific techniques can he used for the
analysis of glass heads. X-ray fluorescence analysis
can he used to determine their chemical com-
position, though a flat facet must be polished on the
The Scientific analysis of glass beads 71
J6	European Bronze Age glass (LMHK) -Iran Age glassILMG) / ° ®	o)
	Weight 7. MgO
weight percent potassium oxide in the principal low led oxide
glass compositions used in prehistoric Europe. Glass from
Frattesina falls into the low magnesium, high potassium
(LMHK) group.
quantitative results produced by these techniques
are generally reliable and they are more sensitive
for some elements than EPMA.
Case study: Bronze-age Europe and
Frattesina in Northern Italy
Following the collapse of Mediterranean civilizations
in the second millennium B.C., there was a vacuum
in which the production of glass around the
Mediterranean virtually ceased. However, in about
the 10th century B.C., the site of Frattesina in
Northern Italy between the rivers Po and Adige (fig.
4) was an exception, and the scientific examination
of die evidence there has provided some exceptional
evidence for local production. The excavations
directed by Dr. A.-M. Bietti-Sestieri have produced
a range of glass artefacts which almost all relate to
‘he manufacture of glass beads.
There is evidence for the manufacture of bone,
antler, copper-alloy, ivory and amber objects on the
she, but evidence for the manufacture of glass beads
ls Particularly comprehensive (Bietti-Sestieri 1981).
Fragments of crucibles bearing white, red and tur-
quoise glass have been found, substantial-sized pat-
ties of blue and turquoise glass have been excavated
and several failed turquoise annular and other bead-
types have been found. Many of the bead-types are
similar to those found at the Swiss Lake Village site
of Hauterive-Champreveyres in Switzerland which
have dendrochronological dates of 1060-1040 B.C.
(Henderson 1988b; Rychner-Faraggi 1993), the most
common type on the latter site being a turquoise
globular type with circumferential rings of opaque
white or red decoration.
The chemical composition of the glass found at
Frattesina and Hauterive-Champreveyres is entirely
different from that found in the rest of the Mediter-
ranean in the second millennium B.C., such as at
Tell-el-Amarna in Egypt and in Syria and Jordan. The
main difference is that the glass found at Frattesina
contains mixed alkalis (sodium and potassium ox-
ides) and is also characterised by low levels of cal-
cium and magnesium oxides. The glass-type is the
earliest “high" potassium glass yet found (fig. 5).
The inference is that the glass was being fused from
primary raw materials somewhere - perhaps at
Frattesina itself - and probably constitutes the first
evidence for the manufacture of glass in Europe.
Without carrying out its scientific analysis, an as-
sumption would probably have been made that the
Fattesina glass had been made in the Middle East
or Egypt.
At present there is no evidence that the glass was
exported to other parts of the Mediterranean - none
(as yet) has been found in Greece, Egypt or the
Middle East, and it is too early to build up a distri-
bution pattern for the glass. On the basis of chemi-
cal characterization it has, however, been possible
to do this in other archaeological contexts, such as
for the beadmaking site of Meare Lake Village in
Somerset. Here glass chemical fingerprinting has
made it possible to establish distribution zones
which reflect Bronze Age tribal territories Ми£
coinage was minted in the area (Guido 1978,
Henderson 1992) (fig. 6).
Conclusions
1	It is possible to suggest the raw materials used to
make glass beads as a result of compositional
2	kFs possible to trace the changes in tech"ol“^
through time; some changes in the use of ingre-
dients occur at very specific times> and am> be
to infer a date for the glass and the beads.
72 Glass Beads
3	. It is sometimes possible to chemically fingerprint
glass from individual workshops, such as at Early
Iron Age Meare in Somerset. England, and build
up distribution patterns which are important in

4	. By investigating the by-products from bead pro-
duction it becomes possible to relate them to the
bead-types made, sometimes to prove that the
Notes
I am grateful to Dr. Yvette Sablerolles for reading through
Literature
Bietti-Sestieri, A-M, 1981: Economy and society in Italy
between the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age.
In: G. Barker & R. Hodges (eds.): Archaeology and
^‘ncirculationmZZthalh'^Z Ь"“'П ""
(probably fourth- second cenZo B cZ^ s ‘““°'
'•as still in eimtlalian
made. П. nZZZZZ.Zf B C- a"“ 'a"r> “
CMstoniuryLalteVillag, Somem^Zl^1" V'"°e‘’ 2
'“<°fMan. 1 . TmZcaerC'°-
Tiraa. Mrathclyde^ZemCI ” Mor Vaal.
W. 15. Carlo^Z	Ч- Coygan
Cornwall.	№ a,rnwaU and 16. Castle Dore.
-1992: Industrial specialization in Late Iron Age Britian
and Europe. The Archaeological Journal. 148. 1991.
Henderson. J. & S.E. Warren, 1981: X-ray fluorescence
analyses of Iron Age glass: beads from Meare and
Glastonbury Lake Villages. Archaeometry 23.1.1981.
7“”h'M' P- ’R- Hunter. S.E. Warren & J.N. Walsh.
1989: The role of Inductively Coupled Plasma
pectrometry in glass provenance studies. In: Y.
Maniatis (ed.): Archaeometry, Proceedings of the 25th
Ho/h м	Amsterdam.
Riles. MJ, M.R. Cowell & P.T Craddock. 1976: Atomic
Absorption Techniques in Archaeology. Archaea-
"tlry 18, 1,1976.
d'archtologie.
The Scientific analysis of glass beads 73
Sellner, C.. H.J. Oel & B. Camera, 1979: Untersuchung
alter Glaser (Waldglas) auf Zusammenhang von
Zusammensetzung, Farbe und SchmelzatmosphSre
mit der Elektronenspektroskopie und der Elek-
tronenspinresonanz (ESR). Glastechnishe Berichte 52,
1979.
75
MEROVINGIAN GLASS BEADS-A CIASSIFICATIONAL MODEL	third of the remaining dress accessories from fe- male bunals. For the correspondence analysis of the beads, 42 types from 101 burials were available. The spond to the nine fashion phases (A -1) of the other jewellery of the female graves, whose chronologi- cal sequence is established by the coin-datings of some of the graves. The cemetery of Eichstetten contains 281 inhu- mations (Sasse 1989 & 1991). For the correspond- ence analysis of the beads, 27 bead-types from 51 graves were available. As a result of the analysis five groups were isolated. The oldest group is asso-
By Barbara Sasse and Claudia Theune	ciated with special types of brooches, the four later ones are associated with different types of shoe fit- tings and earrings. The horizontal stratigraphy of these groups in the cemetery also provides chronological information: the distribution of seriated female burials with beads corresponds to the distribution of seriated male buri- als with belt fittings. Beginning with the work on the Eichstetten cem- etery in 1985, it was necessary to compare beads from Eichstetten with published beads from other cemeteries. In the course of these studies it became evident that there was no general agreement on how a bead should be described and classified. Because
T) eads have been neglected by archaeologists f)for a long time, not least Merovingian glass •Л—^beads. They were described only cursorily, by colour and shape. Only in recent years has more attention been paid to this group of finds. New analyses have shown that glass beads are especially valuable as a source of information on chronology and on economic, cultural and social history. Because of their frequency, beads can also be used or the dating of burials with few other grave goods U). The study of bead-combinations has also ecome important: see for instance the cor- respondence analysis of glass beads from the Namannic cemeteries of Weingarten and Eich- i30111 in Ba(len-Wiirttemberg, Germany, and e horizontal stratigraphy of the bead-types at Bichstetten (Eggert et al. 1980; Goldmann 1979; 1984’Ihm 1983; Ihm & van Groenewoud 1987) Leg°UX 198°: Sc01ar 1984: Sc01ar & Herzog were6 801 grav.es from the Weingarten cemetery e analysed in three separate correspondence wasnfCS (R°th & Theune 1988>: the first analysis at' ° WeaPons and belt fittings from the male buri- e second of beads from female burials; the	of this a key for the description of beads was devel- oped based on the analysis of traits recognized in Eichstetten beads between 1985 and 1988 (Sasse 1986 & in print). Because of the convincing chronological results of glass bead studies, in 1989 a team of experienced German archaeologists started to collaborate on a standardization of the terminology for Merovingian beads (2). Important foundations for this work were the details of the Eichstetten analysis and the typol- ogy of the Weingarten beads. The main aims of the exercise are: 1. To develop a guide for the exact observation and description of glass beads. 2 To develop a standardized nomenclature, as is ’ already in use for other kinds of archaeological finds. The classification is organized hierarchilly (3). The model has been developed mainly for glass beads, but may be extended to further classifi cations, e.g. of amber, stone or metal- beads. As members of this team, we wish to present the classificational model in its present shape here (fig. 1).
76 Glass Beads
The structure of the classification
We define the bead as a unit characterized by traits;
in other words, we dissect the bead. Similarity and
dissimilarity of the traits are responsible for the
similarity and dissimilarity of the beads. Mero-
vingian glass beads are hand-made articles. In
classifying the beads it is assumed that in principal
there were ideal types which the beadmaker tried
to reproduce. It is therefore unnecessary to describe
irregularities reflecting only the manual nature of
the work.
The description of the bead is divided into five
sections:
A.	Identification
B.	Remarks: e.g. conservation, traditional terms
for bead-types
C.	Quality: material and technology
D.	Shape
E.	Surface pattern
A.	Identification
To each bead or group of identical beads, a specific
identifying number is attributed, e.g. an inventory
number or a grave number.
B.	Remarks
Here you can include observations of the condition
of the bead, and terms for types currently used in
the literature.
C.	Quality: material and technology
The first category of classification is the material
the bead is made of. This is organized in three
hierarchical steps; the first covers the main material
categories such as glass, pottery, mineral and
organic (biogenic) materials. The technology of
production and the form depend upon the raw
material used and are therefore secondary to the
raw material. The technology of glass bead-
production is judged by its complexity (fig. 2). Most
beads are produced by the simple method of making
a body which can be decorated by applications. In
the more complicated method the body itself
consists of mosaic rods. These two methods of
production are sub-divided according to their manu-
facturing technology: e.g. whether the glass beads
are wound or drawn or whether complex beads are
made of reticella-cables or millefiori-rods.
D.	Shape
Our description of bead shape basically follows the
Merovingian Glass Beads - a classification* Model 77
given by H. C. Beck (4). We analyse the
sl,ape geometrically.
svm 6 ?r8t cate&ory of classification concerns the
rep n\etry of the vertical section, especially with
га, 3™ the Perforation or thread hole; we sepa-
heL₽e .ants with asymmetrical perforation from
Deads With	.оч Tl,„
vertical section, according to the shape of the sides,
the shape of vertical section and *e'’“S °'
the diameter. The longitudinal profile of the bead is
analysed in terms of the description of the bounda-
78 Glass Beads
Fig. 3. Terminology used in the
description of bead shapes.
verse and longitudinal section of the thread hole es-
praally to observe deviations from the usual round
transverse sectton and differences in size between
either end ofthe thread hole. “etween
E.	Surface patten
elements. They can be simple, or complex if they
kJ, registered on the surface of th..
У С	y* un millell0ri oeaas ine шиш-
and the backgrounds of the mosaic fields are made
from millefiori rods.
Merovingian Cte Beads - a classificational Model 79
bo । , enL u Uero) stands for the surface of the
У »f the bead is undecorated or consists of a body
° applied ornaments. The second number char-
од ??es,	number of the element within the mo-
an । ,e third and fourth numbers are the ornament
and the relief, it tne oeau	---
me formula
fte'bents by a tree
Ле data are registet
'"umber of the orn;
t0 denomination of the colour-ust be precise.
80 Glass Beads
Fig. 5. Classification: Surface-pattern tree structure I
detail: the elements of the motifs.
Example: Description of a bead with a
circulating wave
is based on the system of Munsell’s Book of Color
(Gerharz, Lantermann & Spennemann 1986;
Munsell 1971). A chemical analysis of the colour-
shades of Merovingian glass beads is in progress at
the University of Darmstadt (TH) (Buchta-Hohm,
Hoffmann & Sasse 1992).
vertical symmetry: centrated thread hole (bead)
vertical section: round
segmentation: singular bead
longitudinal profile:
Final remarks
As mentioned above, our classificational system is
structured hierarchically, which means that all traits
whtch are logically dependent on one another^
classified strict у hierarchically, whereas traits
±±7 T У in?ependent °' »» another are
Classed non-hierarchicauy. For example:
uttel 1. All elements made up of various kinds of
longitudinal symmetry: symmetric
proportion: diameter/length - 1
edges and points: no further specification
thread hole:
longitudinal section of the thread hole: circular
Merovingian Glass Beads - a classificational Model	81
1986; Koch 1974a, 1974b, 1977,1982; Pdrin 1980; Sasse
in print; Theune-Vogt 1990,1991. For Caro-lingian and
Viking Age glass beads see Andrae 1975; Callmer
1977; Nasman 1979.
number (1), background number (0)
quality:
raw material: low translucent
Deutsche Gesellschaft fiir Klassifikation, Bock 1977;
important for the classification of the beads shape -
Beck 1928; a system for Viking Age beads, Callmer
relief: elevated
decoration shape:
motif: simple motif
Literature
Andrae, R., 1975: Mosaikaugenperlen. Untersuchungen
zur Verbreitung und Datierung karolingerzeitlicher
Millefioriglassperlen in Europa. Acta Praehistorica et
Archaeologica 4, 1973.
Notes
fikation 1. Serien der 1. Fachtagung der Gesellschaft
fiir Klassifikation e. V. Munster/W., 4/61977, Frank-
Hoffmann & Sasse 1992; Hirst 1985; Hojlund Nielsen
chta-Honm, a., r.	----------
Farbgebung merowingerzeitlicher Glasperlen. Op-
82 Glass Beads
tische Farbklassifikation und Bestimmung der farb-
gebenden Komponenten mit Hilfe der zerstorungs-
freien Rontgenfluoreszenzanalyse am Beispiel der
Friedhofe von Donaueschingen und Eichstetten.
Archaologisches Korrespondenzblatt 22, 1992.
Callmer. J.. 1977: Trade beads and bead trade in Scandi-
Ribe. Eine Ubersicht. Acta Archaeologica 49, 1978,
sagekraft der Kombinationsstatistik. Prdhistorische
Zeitschrift 55. 1980.
Gerharz, R.R., R. Lantermann & D.R. Spennemann,
1986: Munsell-Farbtafeln: Eine Notwendigkeit fur
und Friihgeschichte 9/1, 1986.
friihen Mittelalters. Berlin.
- in print Ein friihmittelalterliches Reihengraberfeld bei
Cologne. 1.-7. juillet 1973, Liege.
- 1974b: Mediterrane und frankische Glasperlen des 6.
und 7. Jahrhunderts aus Finnland. Studien zur Vor-
und FrUhgeschichtlichen Archaologie. Festschrift fur]
Werner zum 65. Geburtstag. Teil II. Friihmittelalter
Miinchen.
 1977: Das Reihengraberteld bei Schreteheim. Germa-
.	D’"km6‘" Vabm.mknngwitЛ 13. Berlin.
• 1982: Die Irankischen Graberfelder von Bargen und
Berghausen in Nordbaden. F»nc»we„ „„d Beriehte
t*ir'or~u,tdFrahgesehiehle in Baden-Wurltemberg 12.
Stuttgart.	*
bigouz. R.L.. 1980: Analyse ehronologique relative d'nne
vaste necropole: 1’exemple du site de Rnll₽e
Historiqu
Geschichte 12. 1984.
Scollar, I. & 1. Herzog, 1987: Ein “Werkzeug" fur Seriation
blatt 17, 1987.
Marburg 33, 1990.
-1991: Analysis of beads found in the Merovingian cem-
tion. Models and Methods with Applications. Proceed-
12-14, 1990.
83
SIMILAR BEADS
OF TYPE 60 FROM
NINTH-CENTURY
MAGNA HUNGARIA
AND
TENTH-CENTURY
HUNGARY
® e i
By Katalin Szilagyi, Judit Nagy-Balogh
and Kamilla G. Solymos
We have compared the material structure of
three beads of the same type, Type 60 (fig.
1) (Szildgyi, forthcoming) (1). This type
of bead is rounded but slightly flattened in form: it
is made of a very good quality glass, usually of a
dark lilac colour that appears black on the surface.
It is decorated with two wavy lines that cross each
other three times, and in the fields that these
intersections create there are three so-called eyes
with rays of different colours on a base of yet another
colour (fig. 2).
These beads are quite common in 10th century
Viking finds as well as in finds from Hungary of that
date (Callmer 1977). In the territory of 8th and 9th
century Magna Hungaria (2), however, they are
very rare (fig. 3). Our example from the cemetery
of Bolshije Tigani, the Tatar Republic, is for instance
the only one from a cemetery of about 90 recovered
graves, the latest graves there having been robbed
(Chalikova & Chalikov) (3). The bead was in grave
86. in the late, plundered section of the cemetery,
pie beads from this cemetery were registered dur-
>ng a study tour in the Tatar S.S.R. in 1990 (4). The
other two beads come from the 10th century cem-
eteries of Szob highway, by the River Ipoly, grave
Figs 1 2a-b. Drawings and photographs of 10th- century
bead-type. 60 (Seildgyi, forthcoming).
84 Glass Beads
“A", and Kenezlo-Fazekaszug, grave 34. Neither of
these sites have been completely excavated (fig. 4)
(5).
It is undoubtedly unnecessary to stress the im-
portance of studying the chemical composition of
beads and of the results this can produce (Szilagyi
1981). In our case, such an investigation is of par-
ticular importance because Bolshije Tigani is con-
sidered to be an ancient Hungarian cemetery, and,
the surface after analysis.
Magna Hungaria for another home, Levedia, when
the cemetery was abandoned around 850 A.D. The
latter date, however, is much debated in scholarly
literature (Bartha 1984 & Chalikov 1989) (6).
beads from Hungary are similar in their chemical
composition. The bead from Bolshije Tigani contains
The chemical composition of the beads was
determined by non- destructive electron microprobe
analysis (Goldstein & Yakovitz 1975) (7) and by
laser- microspectral analysis (Szabo & Nagy-Balogh
beads and the melt phases created by laser shots.
potassium, manganese and г
effect of slow dissolution and/or surface corrosion
measured with an AMRAY 18301 scanning electron
microscope equipped with a PV 9800 energy disper-
sive system. The operating conditions were a 15 Kv
accelerating voltage and 1 nanoamp beam current.
Natural minerals and synthetic materials were used
as standards, and the matrix correction procedures
were undertaken with the FRAME-C program. Be-
The identification of trace elements was carried
out by laser microanalysis with an LMA-type laser
microspectral analysor. The sample was evaporated
by means of a laser beam, and the sparking dis-
charge exacted was studied by optical spectrograph.
в<о* of Type IM from Ninth-Crntury Magna Hangaria and Tenth-Crntury Hungary 85
in the case of silicate samples (fig. 5). The follow-
ing elements were identified in the sample: Ag, Cu,
Cr, Ge, Ni, Pb, Su and Zr. The concentration of the
measured elements is in the range of 10 to 100 git.
The dispersion of Cu, Su, and Pb is not homogene-
There is no essential difference in the composi-
tion of the beads in respect of trace elements. The
Cu and Ag levels in the bead from Szob highway by
the River Ipoly are somewhat higher.
As a result of comparing the material structure
of the beads, we can state that they are so-called
soda glasses, according to the main glass-forming
elements other than silica, Na, K, Ca, Al, Mg and Si
(Dekdwna 1980).
This means that they were made following simi-
lar workshop traditions or recipes, proving that they
had a common cultural-historical background if not
a common place of manufacture.
Since no glassmaking workshop has yet been
found on the territory of 9th or 10th century Hun-
gary, provisionally we have to assume that beads
were obtained through trade (fig. 6).
The close similarity of the two beads found in
Hungary means that they were made in the same
workshop, if not by the same hand or from the glass
mass; one notes the different Cu and Ag levels of
the bead from the Szob highway by the River Ipoly.
The higher levels of Na and К in the bead from
Bolshije Tigani - although the ratio between these
86 Glass' В'»*
about 1.7:1 - can be explained by the chronological
beads from Hungary, and by different habits in re-
spect of dosing with these materials during the melt-
All things being considered, the occurrence of a
Type 60 bead in the latest phase of the cemetery of
Bolshije Tigani and its high similarity to 10th- century
examples from Hungary in material structure (notwith-
standing certain differences that have been noted)
supports the chronology of the cemetery and concur-
with the eastern Transcarpathian regions. There is
much evidence for Hungarians obtaining decorative
items from here in the 9th and 10th centuries (10).
To reach fuller conclusions on the subject of trade
and chronology, more analyses of beads of this type
Scandinavian Viking contexts.
Notes
	Szob-highway along the river Ipoly		Ken6zl6-Faze-		Bolshije Tigani
	Surface	Melt		Melt	
S,02	57.7	50.6	59,7	54,5	53.5
™a	0,4		0,3	0.7	0,1
«А	5.7	7,4	4.8	7,3	5,7
Feo	1.6		2.0	2,7	2,9
MnO	1.8	3.4	2.9	5.9	3,5
M'j'j	5,9	6,0	2,6	3.9	
j'J		7,3	7,2	7.5	2 8
40	12,0	14,5	8,3	11.0	20,3
	7.8	9.3	4,1	6.7	12,0
Tabtt I: Th,	QfUlt blaJs examinid
pie living in Magna Hungaria. Archaeologically the
Igim, Manjak, Tankejevka (partly).
4. Here I wish to thank Ph.D. S.I. Valiullina for her great
my questions.
К.,.ds of Type 60 from Ninth-Century Magna Hungaria and Tenth-Century Hungary 87
under the accession numbers 20/1939 7. Nukov and
55.7.2Л See also Bakay 1978, Dienes 1964, Fettich
1931 & Laszlo 1944.
cialists of this age, the majority of Hungarians had
cemetery of Bolshije Tigani is of the remaining Hun-
Goldstein, J.I. & H. Yakovitz (eds.) 1975: Practical Scan-
ning Electron Microscopy. Plenum Press, New York.
LAszId, Gy., 1944: A honfoglaM rnagyar пёр elete. Buda-
Szab6, Gy.B. & J. Nagy-Balogh, 1989: Determination of
Trace Elements in Kidney Stones by Laser Micro-
spectral Analysis. Acta Chimica Hungarica 126/3.
Szilagyi, K., 1981: Az iiveg, mint reg^szeti lelet. Termtszet
Vilaga 112.
8. The analysis was carried out by Judit Nagy-Balogh of
Pamatky Archaeologicke 1994/2.
Bolshije Tigani was carried out by S.I. Valiullina in
the laboratory of the Department of Archaeology of

10.1.	Erd£lyi: Megjegyzesek az ugynevezett Nagy Karoly
szablyarol. Paper read on May 20th, 1992, in the sci-
the centenary of the birth of Gyula Moravcsik.
Literature
Callmer, J., 1977: Trade beads and Bead Trade in Scandi-
Chalikov, A.H., 1989: Tatarskij narod i jevo predki. Kazan
Chalikova, E.A., 1981: К voprosu a kontaktah drevnih
shnoj Jevrope. In: D. Angelov, (ed.): Pliska-Preslav,
Tom 2. Sofija.
• & AH. Chalikov, 19 : Altungarn an der Kama und in Ural.
Das Draberfeld von Bolsije Tigani. Rigiszeti Fuzetek Ser.
II, nr. 21. Magyar Nemzeti Miizeum. Budapest.
Gdahsk.
W'nes, 1„ 1964: Honfoglalds kori tarsolyainkrdl. Folio
Archaeologist XVI, 1964. Budapest.
F'Wch. N., 1931: Adatok a honfoglaldskor archcold-
gidjdhoz. Archaeoldgiai tirtesito 45, 1931,1.
89
DATA FROM THE ANALYSIS OF ANCIENT GLASS AND THE PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETING THEM	finds are from complexes datable between the sec- ond half of the 3rd century B.C. and the beginning of industrial glassmaking. Hundreds of samples of ancient faience, glaze, frit, and slag were also ana- lysed, together with the ash of plants from various soil and climatic zones - in other words, the most important source of raw material for ancient glassmaking besides natural soda. In the processing of data from both the author’s analyses and those found in published sources, the problem of developing a method for interpreting the composition of the glass arises. Every scien- tist who analyses and studies the composition of ancient glass faces this problem: Sayre and Smith, Brill, Bez-borodov, Dekowna, and Shchapowa. The system developed by the author, and verified on the analytical material, applies elements of the rationales of the interpretative systems of these other specialists. It is based upon a specific fea- ture of the process of manufacture of ancient glass which means that the composition of the glass-
By Valentin A. Galibin	forming components (their chemical type) is inher- ited in the glass, which in turn allows one to deter- mine the character and even the varieties of the original raw materials. In this, it is not the abso- lute levels of the typologically determinative ele- ments that is the crucial factor but rather the pro- portions between the main pairs of glass-forming
' I ^he chemical composition of ancient glass I contains a certain amount of information. The A more precisely it is analysed and the wider the range of elements studied, the greater will be the information obtained. One problem is that of choosing the most informa- tive and effective method of analysis requiring only a small quantity of the substance to be analysed. A second problem in studying the composition of an- cient glass is that of establishing an effective way of interpreting the results obtained so as to produce new information that will supplement and improve the data obtained from conventional archaeological methods. The effectiveness of the interpretation will depend upon the composition of the ancient glass, which can come from many different eras and re- Over the last fifteen years, the author has under- taken about 12,000 quantitative spectrochemical analyses of glass recovered from more than 500 ar- chaeological sites of the former U.S.S.R. and some foreign sites (in England, Poland, Bulgaria, South Yemen, Syria, and Vietnam) as well as some taken from museum collections. The majority of these	elements: Si/Al; Na/K: Ca/Mg. Shchapowa takes account of this principle but does not attach great importance to it, and prefers to rely upon the con- cept of a “prescriptive norm”, which means the proportion between alkali and alkali-sand elements, which are believed always to be introduced into the charge separately and in fixed proportions. In our opinion this is not satisfactory. The system of chemical types proposed by the au- thor is based upon the following principles: a.	The chemical type of the ancient glass is deter- mined by the selection of glass-forming elements (Si, Al, Na, K, Ca, Mg, Pb and Ba). b.	Elements used as technical ingredients (color- ants, opacifiers, decolorisers, fining agents) do not contribute to the chemical type. c.	The classification of alkaline glass by chemical type takes account of the proportions between the main pairs of glass-forming elements. These pro- portions reveal the kind of alkaline raw materials and the quality of sand used.
9.0
When analysing lead and lead-alkaline glass, one
must specially distinguish between lead used in
the glass as a glass-forming element and lead used
e. Biogeochemical subtypes specific to alkaline raw
materials and sand are distinguished. These have
particular samples of glass based purely upon for-
mal features of their composition, though naturally
The chemical type is defined as a combination of
subtypes which correspond to the raw materials
of one type: the natural soda, potash, vegetable
ash of a certain soil, and climatic zone, etc.
sian, entitled The
of 2,022 specimens of ancient glass.
The chemical type of the glass largely fixes which
range of raw materials, it belongs to. In other words,
it points to its origin. As far as the chronological
limits of the occurrence of glass of a certain chemi-
cal type, this also makes it possible to date the glass
Literature
i srednevekovykh stekol. Minsk.
Brill, R.H., 1987: Chemical Analyses of some Early In-
dian Glasses. Proceedings of the XIV International Con-
gress on Glass. 1986. New Delhi, India. Archaeometry
the technical ingredients which are added to im-


school or centre of glassmaking, allowing us to make
ries of Ancient Glass. Science 133, No. 3467.
klodeliya. Moscow.
are Sb. Mn. As. Cu. Fe, Sn, Co, Pb. Ag, Au, and Cr.
In respect of the level of oxidation, the composition,
the chemical type of the glass, the glassmaking con-
ditions. and combinations with other elements, these
can be used (or omitted) in various ways in
glassmaking centres. This fact, or the composition
of the glass, is diagnostic both of the period of manu-
facture and the origins of the excavated glass sam-
— ---------аэ vlldIlce admixtures, with the
maker responding to their presence in an indirect
way by selecting and applying other components of
°y.tech?ical ingredients. To the elements
already mentioned we could add Ni. Mo. Ge. Be P
.«mvu vaiuc ui me data bank
re®ulantles “ imposition which had not
previously been noticed are discovered in the pro-
cess of comparing new data with old. Looking ahead
while we accumulate and work with the data bank
91
THE GLASS
BEADS FROM THE
skovgArde
CEMETERY
By Per Ethelberg
The SkovgArde cemetery (Ethelberg 1989,
1992) was found and excavated in 1988, in
connection with the building of the last stage
of the southern motorway between Redby and
Copenhagen. At Udby, in Southern Sealand, the
motorway cuts through a double-topped hillcrest
called Snogebrinken or Skraalbanken. From here
there is a magnificent view over most of Southern
Sealand to the northern parts of Falster and the
SmAland Channel. Since the 19th century, a number
of important finds have come from this area into
the National Museum in Copenhagen and later on
to Sydsjaellands Museum, from the Late Roman
Period especially: for instance from Egebjerg
(Mackeprang 1943, no. 447), Grumlose (Eggers
1955, no. 167), Hastrup (Lund Hansen 1976),
Broskov (Broholm 1930), the Broskov road
(Kunwald 1962) and Udby (Mackeprang 1944:61).
The cemetery consists of 18 inhumation graves,
orientated north-south, which through their pottery
and brooches can all be dated to the Late Roman
Period - more precisely from the end of Cla to the
beginning of C2, which correspond to the period
210/20-250/60 A.D. , with the main emphasis falling
“princely", like those from the famous site of
Himlingoje (Lund Hansen 1978, 1981,1988 & 1991;
Norling-Christensen 1951).
The SkovgArde cemetery is distinguished by be-
ing a complete entity, with all burials having been
localized and examined. The skeletal material is
extremely well preserved and can provide impor-
tant data on the population. The majority of the
graves are very richly equipped, for instance with
gold rings and with imports from the Roman prov-
inces in the form of glass cups and mosaic beads
in closely-datable find-combinations. Thus the site
has produced Sealand’s largest Late Roman-period
find in respect of combs, pottery, de luxe jewel-
lery, plain silver and bronze brooches, spindle
whorls of bronze and glass, amber beads, and tex-
tile remnants. Finally the graves contained a con-
siderable number of well-preserved animal skel-
etons, which may give important information on
animal husbandry. In this connection, one must
mention a horse-grave which should probably be
considered as a sacrifice intended to consecrate the
area as a burial site.
The cemetery provides us with essential new
knowledge of both chronological and social details
which are of importance not only in respect of
Sealand and the surrounding areas but possibly also
for all of Germania Libra.
The graves contain objects which appear here in
as yet the earliest context in Germania Libra north
of the Limes. In Southern and Central Germany
Fig. I. The location of the Skovgarde-cemetery
92	Class В,ads
the 4th century while on Sealand they are now to be
dated to the first half of the 3rd century. Examples
of this are the trefoil tutulus brooch from grave 400
and the glass cup with side ribs and the disc brooch
examples) and large discoid beads (4 ex.), of which
two are turned; oblong beads (12 ex.) and berloque-
The beads
The find includes a total of 1.313 beads. In spite of
the limited number of graves this is one of the largest
closed finds of beads of the Late Roman Period north
of the Limes. This may be due to the fact that
cremation is the most common burial custom south
of the Baltic while the custom of inhumation is
dominant on Sealand and in Jutland. Here we can
note the Sejlflod cemetery in Northern Jutland and
the cemeteries of Enderupskov and Hjemsted in
Southern Jutland. Though a considerable quantity
of beads has been found at Hjemsted (1.654), they
and with bUte<1 am°ngSt considerably more graves
aged berloque-shaped beads have been used as the
The metal beads include spiral beads of silver (63
shaped ends respectively of silver and bronze.
The glass beads
The glass beads make up more than 60% of the total
amount of beads; 807 in all. The main groups that
typology (Tempelmann-Maczynska 1985) has been
The Glass Beads from the Skovgdrde Cemetery 93
pelmann-Maczynska s numbers. Starting from
here, a total of 121 different bead-types can be
recognized.
Amongst the plain glass beads, the double conical
bead is clearly the most frequent with 298 examples
in all. It is found in two colours, light green and dark
blue, but always translucent. Discoid beads with a
diameter of more than 1 cm are described as large.
Most common here are the colourless translucent
beads. Amongst the oblong beads, the hexagon bead
is the most common, with a total of 27 examples.
Amongst the polychrome beads, the type with inlaid
pieces of glass in different/various colours is the most
common, with 11 examples in all. The mosaic bead,
with a total of 194 specimens, makes up the most
TMType Num,	TMType Num.	TM Type Num.	TM Type Num.
1a 22 2a 12 4a 1 4a1	1 5	1 7a 3 8 2 8a 3 9a 1 10 7 11	1 11a 2 12 10 12a 10 13	1 14	1 18 4 18a 6 20 2 25	1 28	4 30a 13 31	2 32a	1 32b	1 36	1 40 3 40a 2 42a 8 46a	1 52	1	53a	2 54	13 55	5 56	61 57	237 59a	3 89	1 90a	1 95b	2 97Ы	1 103	1 107	1 117	3 118	23 118a	4 120	1 120a	1 126	17 128	5 128a	2 129	1 129a	4 138	1 147	1 159a	3 160	1 163	1 167a	2 168	1 183	2 198e	2	198g	1 198h	1 198i	1 198k	2 199	4 205	1 215c	1 2231	1 225a	6 225a1	2 254a	1 263b	1 266d1	1 267c	1 294c	3 338c	2 338e	1 338f	1 354d1	2 355d	1 356e	2 356f	2 356g	2 360a1	2 360a2	8 360a3	2 360a4	3 360a5	1 360d	7 361c	1 361 d	3	362a 11 362b 19 362e 6 362e1 28 362f	8 362f1	1 362h	8 362h1	4 362h2	1 362h3 4 362m	1 362n 12 362o	2 363a	2 363b	4 364a	1 365	1 366d1	4 366d2 13 366d3	1 366d4	7 366d5	8 366d6	1 387a 40 387b	2 387g	1 387h	5 Undef. 7 Total 807
Tt>ble I. Survey of the glass beads grouped after Tern-
Pl,mann-Mactynska's typology.
outstanding find-group among the beads. Most fre-
quent are beads with rosette motifs, numbering 107
in all. Most remarkable in relation to Tempelmann-
Maczynska's typology is the presence of 12 beads
with a dark blue ground colour. Second most frequent
is the type with a chequerboard pattern (34 ex.).
However, the beads with metopic motif are also rela-
tively common (27 ex.).
The value of the beads as chronological indica-
tors has to be regarded as limited and quite inappli-
cable to delicate chronological analysis. One should
also perhaps be cautious about using the beads to
identify possible trade routes. On the other hand
detailed studies may contribute to the illustration of
possible exchange systems. The beads are more in-
formative on the subject of the fashion of the time,
and perhaps one should not exclude the possibility
that some of the beads may have possessed a spe-
cific symbolic value. More than 20 beads, for in-
stance, were found in the filling above grave 8. Ac-
of the ordinary grave goods. These beads include
spiral beads of bronze, mosaic beads, melon beads
and large discoid beads, and must be regarded as a
kind of burial sacrifice.
The strings of beads
The careful excavation and recording of the beads
from the SkovgSrde graves combined with excellent
conditions - a good state of preservation and
insignificant disturbance - have given us a detailed
picture of how the beads fitted into the fashion of
that time. I think this fashion is central to an
understanding of the function of the beads. They
were colourful objects, and were certainly not
arranged in a casual way. Just as the beads fascinate
us today, I imagine they fascinated the men and
women of the Late Roman Period.
The beads had three functions in Late Roman-
period fashion. They were worn by aristocratic
women to decorate the hair, where they seem to have
been attached to the monstrous hair pins that kept
the women’s hair in place on the side of the head.
The hair beads were arranged without regard to
s^The beads were also used for necklaces, which
seem to have been composed with obvious atten-
ti°These'consist" primarily of small beads^ Amber
beads are especially frequently used m combinations
with thin silver spirals and thin oblong
beads; but double conical glass beads also appear
94 Glass Beads
frequently. In several cases a considerable number
of berloque-shaped amber beads is seen. The neck-
lace in grave 400 is of special interest. It is com-
posed of alternating discoid and berloque-shaped
amber beads. The grave is to be dated to the transi-
tion from Clb to C2 as the brooches are clear Cl fa-
types but the pottery belongs to C2. Several similar
necklaces are known on the Continent, but there
they are primarily dated to the end of C2 and C3.
The beads are thirdly used in monstrous breast
decorations: strings of beads attached both to the
spiral ends of the de luxe brooches (placed at the
breast) and to the smaller shoulder brooches. Here
cal. The breast decorations consist mainly of large
beads: the mosaic beads, the large discoid and large
polychrome beads. To these must be added silver
and bronze spiral beads, cylindrical and bucket-
shaped bronze pendants and discoid silver pendants.
The breast decorations may be finished off with dif-
ferent kinds of pendants such as toilet implements,
amulet boxes, coins or particularly large beads.
Here the breast decorations of Sealand clearly dif-
fer from the Jutlandic ones, which often end in a
bronze ring. This ring was presumably used as a
kind of buckle to keep the string of beads towards
the body. It is important to realize that the breast
decorations were not worn around the neck.
On the subject of the symmetrical composition of
the beads that has been demonstrated, it cannot be
assumed that SkovgSrde was unique in this respect.
Looking at one of the old pictures of a string of beads
from Himlingoje, we can assume that this, too, was
composed symmetrically.
The number of strings of beads varies from grave
to grave. In grave 209 a total of 4 strings of beads
can be identified, while in grave 9 there was only
one necklace. Typically, the largest number of
strings of beads, the most metal beads and the most
mosaic beads are found in the richest graves. By
both status score values (Holten 1989) and AOT-
values (Number of Artefact types) (Hedeager 1990),
grave 209 and grave 400 are the richest graves from
Sealand from the Late Roman Period as yet found
outside the Himlingeje area.
Ethelberg, R, 1989: SkrAlbanken. SKALK. 3 1989.
- 1992: Ein seeiandisches Ftirstengrab aus dem friihen 3.
Jahrhundert. SkovgSrde Grab 8. Fundberichte aus
Baden Wurttemberg, Band 16.
Hedeager, L., 1990: Danmarks Jernalder. Mellem stamme
og stat. Arhus.
Holten, L., 1989: Slangehovedringe i yngre romersk
jernalder i 0stdanmark - en social analyse. I: L.
Jorgensen (ed.): Simblegard - Trelleborg. Danske
3. Arksologisk Institut,
Kunwald, G., 1962: Broskowejen. Nationalmuseets
Lund Hansen, U., 1979: To nye grave fra Himlingoje.
zwischen dem Romischen Reich und dem freien
Beriicksichtigung Nordeuropas. Nordiske Fortids-
minder, Serie B, Bind 10.
-1991: Himlingoje-undersogelserne. Om baggrunden for
C. Fabech & J. Ringtved (eds.): Samfundsorganisation
Folkevandringstid. Jysk Arkaeologisk Selskabs
skrifter XXVII.
Lund Hansen, U. & H. Nielsen, 1978: En ny Himlingoje-
Mackeprang, M.B., 1944: Kulturbeziehungen im
Nordischem Raum des 3. bis 5. Jahrhunderts. Ham-
burger Schrifien zur Vorgeschichte und Germanischen
Friihgeschichte.
 1944: En bronzespand med billedfrise i en grav fra 3.
Norling-Christensen, H., 1951: Jaernaldergravpladsen ved
Tempelmann-Maczynska, M., 1985: Die Perlen der
baricum. Romisch Germanische Forschungen, Band
43, Frankfurt A.M.
Literature:
Broholm, H.C., 1930: Broskov-Fundet. En gravpiads fra
Folkevandringstiden. Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark.
rbmischen Kaiserzeit im Freien Germanien. Jahrbuch
RGZM II.
Theme 3:
Beads - experiment and analogy
97
ANATOLIAN
GLASS BEADS
The Final Traces of
Three Millennia of
Glassmaking in the
Mediterranean Region
By Onder Kucukerman
No matter where you may be in Anatolia, glass
beads are easy to find. Yet the number of
craftsmen supplying such a vast market is
surprisingly small. One of the most important craft
centres is the village of Gorece, at Cumaovasi in the
Izmir region.
The making of glass beads is one of the most
traditional forms of glassmaking in Anatolia and one
of the most interesting aspects of an art which es-
tablished itself in the eastern Mediterranean Area
thousands of years ago, gradually spreading to the
western coastal regions (fig. 1).
Glass and the glass bead
If we approach traditional Anatolian glass bead
making primarily as a glass-forming technique in
otn its practical application and its basic technique,
' °e.comes clear that the craft could only have
uryived for its main product to bear the formidable
sociocultural values as an object that it does,
roughout Anatolia, by being coupled with an
qually formidable technology. It has developed
ong with that technology, still bearing the
.' esPread talismanic significance. It is this
nn°logical link which places this small exam-
P e of living folk tradition within the framework of
glassmaking. This is a link which has perhaps been
ignored up to now, precisely because of the
superstitions connected with glass beads
Glass beadmaking is. ultimately, the name given
to only one of the glass-forming techniques, and not
one which can be definitely identified, although it is
based on a recognizable technical system. The sys-
tem was a kind of core moulding, in which the glass
is built up over a rod and therefore is perforated in
the centre, and then shaped on the rod with various
instruments.
The form of a glass bead is not only technically
economical, but highly functional. The hollow cen-
tre is an essential part of the artefact, as it indicates
its function, being the means by which it was strung
through with thread to be worn or hung as a talis-
man, and allowing it to be easily handled and car-
I feel that it is precisely this balanced combination
of function and technology which has preserved the
craft as a living tradition up to the present day. Just
think, if a technique was suddenly required to dis-
pense with the hole in the centre of the bead, the
thousands of years of history connected to this tech-
nical feature would vanish in an instant..
Ancient glass beads and how they
were made
The first glass beads were undoubtedly made as
cheap substitutes for precious stones, which could
be polished, cut, shaped and pierced, but only with
great difficulty given the technical limitations of the
9 8 Glass Beads
startingly attractive as substitute gems despite the
apparent simplicity of their technique. In addition
they had the advantage of being finished down to
the final decorative touches in one technical stroke.
Indeed, they were widely made and used through-
out the ancient world from Mesopotamia to Egypt,
Phoenica to Iran. India to many parts of Africa, China
and Japan to Europe, and throughout the Mediter-
of these beads was extremly varied: indeed, it is al-
of range of techniques and types can be reduced to
a few basic technical principles.
Sinter casting: the cold body fusion technique
the required consistency, colourants added, and then
modelled and fired in the mould to cause fusion. This
was also a common method of bead making (fig. 4).
[ф] рф] [Ф]
Pressing (or pinching) the glass gather while molten
is a method widely used for forming. It is both an
easy method of forming and a simple technique in
itself. The bead is pierced in various ways during
the course of its manipulation (fig. 2).
Press moulding and piercing
The glass melt is poured into an open mould and
pierced with a sharp instrument. As a technique, it
Fig-3.

V'craftsman and yet *
This is the most widespread bead-making technique.
A length of melt drawn from the crucible is wound
around a rod while still molten and cut when cool. It
is a technique which has been popular throughout
Anatolian Glass Beads 9 9
the history of glass, even though it presents some
practical complications. The main reason for this is
that, given optimal technical conditions, it is the
fastest form of beadmaking known. A secondary
reason for its popularity is the fact that the end
product is easily obtained, via a primary technique,
without any “extra-vitreous” techniques. In other
words, the bead is created on the rod, by the glass
thrower, in a single process (fig. 7).
Fig.7.
Tradition in glassmaking: the search
for the natural
Master craftsmen in the field of ceramics, metal-
work, glass and similar crafts have long sought the
perfect creative interpretation of nature. Such
craftsmen always aimed for the ultimate aesthetic
or real values in imitating nature. The earliest glass
artefacts were glass beads. It was this ability of glass,
which it did perhaps better than of any other
material, to imitate the qualities of precious stones,
which provided the ancient bead-maker with an
immediate aim for his creative instincts.
The craft of glass-making was, however, influ-
enced, no less than any other ancient craft, by myth
and superstition. However, technically accurate the
documentary records appear, there is also a ritual
element attached to these crafts. The sparkle of glass
must have struck ancient Man as part of the “vital
spark of life". So naturally their creation must have
inspired the belief that they were something supe-
rior, if not actually alive.
To understand this we have only to look at the
vast store of folk objects, and artefacts in Anato-
lia of which beads are an integral part, from
horsedrawn wagons and livery to jewellery. The
connection between these artefacts and beads is
complex and tortuous. Bead-making must have been
influenced by a series of unconnected historical
events. The demand for livery beads, for example,
declined radically after the introduction of motor
vehicles, particularly in the agricultural sector, but
also in transportation in general. Talismanic beads
against the evil eye on the other hand, became more
common after that time. This is a blue bead or disc
of glass or similar brilliant material, often embel-
lished with trinkets and charms, which is believed
to keep away the evil eye. It has long been a popular
form of talisman, the existence of which strikes one,
consciously or not, in every corner of the region.
Glass workshops through the
millennia
The traditional Anatolian workshops in which glass
beads are made are particularly similar to each other
in their structure and internal arrangement. The
workshop is basically a roof supported of four walls.
Some workshops have adjustable air vents in the
walls to release excess heat. In the centre of the
workshop is a ground furnace. Around the walls
piles are stacked of pine logs, sacks, baskets, and
vessels of all kinds containing the raw materials for
glass-making. The craftsman’s utensils are usually
scattered haphazardly arond the furnace. Pine wood
is used to fire the furnace as it can provide extremely
high temperatures, but it also burns with a luminant
flame. Air-circulation is extremly important if the
glassworkers are not to be effected by these
conditions, so that the position of the roof or wall
vents have to be carefully chosen. The furnace has
no chimney. The smoke and heat escapes via the
working holes of the furnace, and is generally
directed straight towards the face of the craftsman
(fi Such is the simplicity of this arrangement that
one is tempted to think that the glass workshops
thousands of years ago must have been no differ-
ent. Indeed, there can be little doubt of this, and
this is why the glass beadmaking methods employed
in these workshops appear so ancient as to draw
one so far back in time. Only the firm reality of the
glass bead in your hand reminds you that this is not
fhe case. I think that is is this element of timeless-
ness as well as the symbolic significance of the ar-
tefact which makes glass beadmaking particularly
interesting...
100 Glass Beads
Anatolian Glass Beads 101
Fig. 9. The furnace.
beads, the melt prepared in the morning will last
him all day. When work is finished the furnace is
left to cool, the fire doused, with the newly made
beads set on a special annealing section to cool
slowly alongside the furnace itself.
Under the daub
Although much of what we see in a glass workshop
appears unreal, what is truly extraordinary is not
the exterior effect, but the glass furnace itself. What
appears at first sight to be a rather hastily built,
random construction actually involves quite a
complex technological tradition.
Such furnaces are usually built of clay bricks and
paved with clay mortar so that the basic construc-
tion is hidden below a layer of daub. It is hard to
give an adequate description of this structure, whose
seemingly random form is totally in contrast to the
technological symmetry of modern functionalism.
The effect is that of a number of curves and angles
around a dome... But this is not quite the right de-
scription. It is as if someone tried to create a figure
out of earth, but was dissatisfied with it and left the
construction for years, and it is cracked in places, the
Paving flaking off in others. A strange form... (fig. 9).
But this curious construction is, in fact, one which
sustains, in the simplicity of its form, not only an
extremely high temperature capability, but ex-
traordinary structural features. In particular, it is
notably appropriate being the essential function for
which it was built. The glass beadmaker’s furnace
is not merely surprising, even to those who are
closely involved with glass, but it is almost a mira-
cle of heat technology.
To the glassworker using such furnaces, their
structure and function seem, curiously, unimportant.
They ask “How else could it be?"., a significant ques-
tion. as for them it is a matter of form and function
without an alternative, evolved over a very long pe-
riod of time.
The beadmaker’s raw materials
The beadmaker’s attitude to his materials is very
different from the way we now approach glass-
making. As in all the traditional skills passed on to
him by his father, from earlier generations working
in the same craft, each craftsman has his own
methods, based on trial and error•	b’sic1ngr
dients of glass have been known for millennia, but
tiie minor consistuents are a secret of the craftsmen.
102 Glass Beads
Each craftsman does basically the same thing, hut
is trying to create something a little different from
his neighbour without revealing his technical know-
ledge or the secret of his creative skills, as once
these are generally known, he loses his function as
a craftsman. His glassmaking skill and creative tech-
niques are, after all. the essentials of his craft.
Conclusion
Glassmaking is basically an interesting technology
which has changed very little in thousands of years,
produce various different types of glass.
The art of glass is ultimately one which is inextri-
cably tied to technological expertise of a particular
kind. The subject of this study is one which appears
to be closely connected with an even more restricted
part of that technology. At first glance is is the tech-
nology which appears limited, but in fact is a tech-
nology that allows the craftsman considerable crea-
come master of his art, learning his trade at his fa-
lifestyle. It is, above all, a craft which the craftsman
himself recognizes as something beyond a simple
working process, a craft whose products are unique.
preting the hermetic skills of the master craftsman
who prefers to keep his professional secrets to him-
on his own creative methods, knowing fully well that
his livelihood depends on it.
103
PURDALPUR,
A GLASS
BEAD-MAKING
VILLAGE IN
NORTHERN INDIA
By Torben Sode
their own skills and experience. Like other glass-
makers, the beadmakers need a lot of fuel to melt
the glass; this has traditionally been wood. It makes
a big difference in respect of energy consumed
whether the beadmakers make the raw glass them-
selves, which requires a much higher temperature
than if they remelt existing glass or glass fritt.
Most of the beadmakers in Purdalpur now buy
their raw glass from bigger factories in Firozabad,
situated about 50 km south of Purdalpur and 40 km
east of Agra. Firozabad is the main centre of glass
manufacturing, where between four and five hun-
dred companies produce about half of all the glass
articles made in India.
In Purdalpur today there are about forty low-
domed clay furnaces, in which the beadmakers pro-
duce the glass beads. Normally sixteen to twenty
glass bead makers sit around the furnace. Every-
one has his own working place, where he sits squat-
ting on the ground in front of individual ports manu-
facturing the glass beads. The furnace allows the
Compared with Egypt and Mesopotamia in the
West, the Indian glass and glass-bead
tradition is of much later origin. Not until 300
B.C. did glass beads become common. We know that
in ancient time, like today, the Agra region was one
of Northern India’s glass-making centres. The
village of Purdalpur is situated 75 km north of Agra.
In this village the people make much of their living
by manufacturing beads, and the beadmakers
produce glass beads using many different tech-
niques, shapes, colours, and sizes. Glass bead-
making in the village is now completely in muslim
Purdalpur is located in a barren area where peo-
ple traditionally had little agricultural work. The
sandy ground has a high natural sodium carbonate
content, which means that the beadmakers really
just had to dig to get their raw material. Until just a
few years ago, beadmakers still used local materi-
als for beadmaking. These traditional beads were
called country beads and the local glass country glass.
The quality was not very high and there was of
course great variety in the composition of this glass.
To produce glass beads, the craftsmen need,
a °ng with sand, flux, stabilizer for the glass and
clay for the furnace, only very few tools alongside

Fig. 1. Sixteen to twenty P<"Ple P™1"""* b,ais a",“"d °
clay furnace.
104 Glass Beads
Fig. 2. The cylindrical pieces for
clay tablets before the mosaic
beadmaker to manufacture beads in many different
techniques. The furnace is built by the workers
themselves, guided by the oldest beadmaker, this
work normally takes about one week. The round clay
furnace can normally be used for about one year
before it is burnt out, after which the beadmakers
have to tear it down and build a new one. The fur-
naces are similar to types known from early ar-
chaeological finds, just as the furnace-wound beads
are similar to the oldest types of glass beads that
are known.
According to tradition, the monochrome furnace-
wound beads are called donkey-beads because they
are used on equipment on donkeys’ harnesses. The
beads were also used as decoration on horses, cam-
els, and elephants. This use of glass beads on har-
nesses is the main reason why the craft of traditional
glass beadmaking has survived.
The furnace-wound bead is built up by rolling a
bit of glass onto the conical end of a metre-long
mandrel or pontil made of steel. To prevent the glass
from sticking to the mandrel, the beadmakers rub
the tip on a piece of rock salt. The beadmakers do
not use any slip to get the bead from the pontil. At
this high temperature there is a reaction between
the natrium chloride and the steel so that the outer
hyer loosens This is seen as a black layer of iron
Л ' к ‘d! hT con,cal central hole »f 'he bead.
a tobS? 'OnnSthebrad ЬУ ^“8"0»
a flat ironplate, die marver, just outside the furnace
port This can also be done with a small steel scoop
which has the shape of the final bead. When the bead
has been formed, the beadmaker knocks it off the
mandrel into a small clay pot. The clay pot is used
as an annealing container, and is kept on the ground
just outside the working port. When the annealing
pot is full, the beadmaker puts on a cover and places
the pot full of beads in a corner of the workshop,
where the beads will cool slowly. This prevents in-
ner tension, which would make the beads break.
Depending on their size, the monochrome beads are
either made one by one, or several at a time with a
form scoop and then cut apart or left in series as
segmented beads.
The so-called powder glass beads are also furnace-
wound beads decorated with powdered glass spots
or lines, an old Indian speciality, in use for thousands
of years. A wound bead is formed on the mandrel
and then rolled in an iron scoop with an engraved
pattern. This pattern is filled up with glass powder
which fuses onto the hot glass bead in different de-
signs depending on the engravings. Today the
beadmakers in Purdalpur also produce imitations of
Tibetan dzi beads in this way.
Another old technique is that of decorating the
beads with small glass particles, slices, or pieces of
rod. The hot wound bead is rolled in glass pieces
which are placed on the iron marble just outside the
furnace. Then the glass is reheated and the beads
are made into their final form. The technique of
making moulded glass beads is also well known and
is often used in Purdalpur. The glass on the man-
Purdalpur. a Glass Bead-Making Village in Northern India 105
drel is pressed between two iron die halves that are
joined by a steel ribbon serving as a spring.
Mosaic or millefiori beads are produced in
Purdalpur in large quantities today. These Indian
beads are imitations of Venetian work, but the tech-
nique was already known in ancient time by the
Egyptians and the Romans. Until this century,
millefiori beads were manufactured at different
places in Europe for trading with the natives of the
new world. But the route has now changed and
mosaic beads produced in Purdalpur are exported
in large quantities to Western countries.
To produce mosaic beads, the workers first have
to cut the rods into small cylindrical pieces about 1
centimetre long. This work is mostly done by chil-
dren. The pieces of mosaic rod are placed on their
cross section on the iron marver just outside the
furnace port. The beadmaker gathers a bit of mol-
ten glass at the mandrel, then marves it around the
conic end and dips the hot glass into the pieces of
mosaic rod. One end is applied and fused onto the
bead and the other end becomes part of the final
design. The rod’s cross section then shows the mo-
saic pattern. More complicated bead designs are
made by placing small pieces of glass in special pat-
terns on clay tablets, which are then fused in the
furnace. The beadmaker then gathers this small slab
or glass cake of fused pieces on the mandrel and
marves it on the iron plate or with the scoop.
The mosaic rods are often produced by the
beadmakers themselves. The master starts a gather
by melting different glass and glass rods together.
The gather is the molten glass that the beadmaker
forms by attaching the hot glass to the end of the
gathering iron or pontil. It is built up by dripping
and twirling the work iron with glass of one colour
on a stick, and then grooving it by filling in with
other colours. The glassmaker constantly rotates
and twirls it to keep the gather in place. By rolling
the gather across the marver the beadmaker shapes
the bit of glass on the mandrel. It is necessary to
reheat and marve to ensure good shape and cohe-
sion of the layer, and to avoid air bubbles in the
gather between the layers or attaching semi-molten
glass in different colours.
Simple eye patterns and ring patterns are made
by repeating the process of rolling the gather at the
marver and dipping it in a new colour glass. This
way the glassmaker builds up a gather of multicol-
oured layers which have a dot surrounded by sev-
eral bands. Fancy mosaic rods - often with a star or
flower pattern and other multicomposite glass rods
- are also built up by layers in different colours.
When the desired pattern has been built up, the
gather is pulled out into a long rod. Before drawing
the rod, the master must reheat the gather in the
furnace and then place it on another puntel at the
opposite end before he hands it to a second worker.
The thread is drawn between the two puntels out in
the street, often over a iron hook placed in the
ground: the thread is often drawn more than 50
metres.
106 Class Я"*
& i
Fig. 4. A furnace-drawn mosaic rod is drawn directly from
the glass mass in the furnace.
The drawn rod is broken into pieces half a metre
long, which are easier to handle. These pieces of
rod are later broken into smaller pieces. Mosaic rods
in many different designs are produced in Purdalpur
today: stars, flowers, and round patterns, in addi-
tion to more complicated fancy designs. Not only
mosaic rods but also ordinary plain coloured glass
rods are produced by the beadmakers this way.
Complicated fancy mosaic rods such as rods with
face patterns are produced in a special small fur-
nace. There are two of these furnaces made only
much bigger gather - the glass mass often weighs
more than 20 kilos - it is possible to build up very
complicated mosaic rods. The gather is placed on a
big work iron on which the glass is kept in the fur-
nace and from which the master continuously draws
the rod for hours. Sometimes the glassmakers have
to take the glass mass out of the furnace to replace
and centre the glass on the working iron with a flat
iron tool on a marble stone on the ground just out-
side the furnace. To control the rod-drawing, they
must also cool the glass around the working iron
with water so that the glass mass has the right tem-
perature at the face from which the rod is drawn.
Lamp-wound glass beads in the Czech style are
also made in Purdalpur. This technique was intro-
duced in 1938 by a Czech couple who started a glass
school in The Benares Hindu University in Varanasi.
Here some Purdalpur men learned to make these
lamp beads, which are now produced as a small scale
home industry. Many different kinds of beads are
made in the workshops, and in daily terms the lamp-
wound beads are called Benares Beads.
A square table about a metre wide is the working
place, and there is room for four beadmakers. The
beadmakers have to work the double bellows under
the worktable with their feet. The air is blown
through the fire of a kerosene lamp, from 4-6 air
jets in front of the beadmaker. Because of the con-
stant supply of air from the bellows, the flame
achieves a high enough temperature to melt and
form the glass. The beadmakers use pre-manufac-
tured glass rods, made by the industrial glass facto-
ries in Firozabad. The rods are between 0.5 and 1
cm in diameter and about 50 cm long.
The coloured glass rods are pre-heated just in
front of the flame, before the beadmaker can use
them to produce the beads, as they would otherwise
be shattered by the hot flame. To produce the beads
the beadmaker twirls and rolls the glass rod around
a wire in the hot point of the flame. The high tem-
perature causes the glass to melt together very ho-
mogeneously. Thinner rods are drawn from the raw
glass rods. These thin monochrome rods are finally
used to make dots, rings, spirals, and lines on and
around the bead. Small glass particles and pieces of
mosaic rod are also used for decoration as well as
twisted polychrome rods. These spirals are made
by fusing and winding different coloured glass rods
together in the flame and then drawing it out.
To give the bead uniform size and design the
beadmakers roll the hot and viscious bead in an open
half-form of iron which has the shape of the bead.
The beadmaker uses a double mould for special
shapes and mould-pressed designs.
The lamp-wound beads are wound side by side
on a 25 to 30 cm long wire of copper or iron. The
number of beads on each wire naturally depends on
the size of the beads. The wire has a thin layer of
china-chalk as slip, so the finished beads can be re-
moved from the wire after cooling without break-
ing. As a result, the lamp-wound beads always have
a bit of chalk in the central hole, and the diameter
of the hole is the same throughout the bead.
This small-scale home industry making lamp-
wound beads exists throughout the village as well
as in smaller places in the countryside around the
village. Often a larger Bead Company lends the fami-
lies a working table and supplies the family with
tools, raw glass rods, and other working materials,
and pays for finished beads.
The whole family works at manufacturing the
beads. The father, the oldest sons and perhaps an
Purdalpur, a Class Brad-Making Villa,, in NarlUrrn India 107
uncle produce the glass beads. Smaller children and
the women wash and prepare the glass, put the
china-chalk on the copper wires and string the fin-
ished beads.
How long the people in the village of Purdalpur
have been producing glass beads is difficult to say;
there are no written or archaeological sources. This
very long and strong tradition and craft of making
glass beads must surely date back several centuries
at least: this could have been one of the glass bead
centres even in ancient times.
This paper is based on the results of my study
trip to Northern India in April 1992. The aim of the
trip was to find out where glass bead production
takes place and to investigate the production meth-
ods for non-industrial beads.
109
NEW DATA CONCERNING EARLY GLASS BEADMAKING IN LADOGA (IN THE 8THTO10TH CENTURIES AD.)	more than 11.000 beads have been found in the old- est part of the settlement (the so-called earth-town) in an area of about 2000 sq.m. The presence of dis- carded beads and of glass slag and crucibles with glass influxes immediately strikes one on looking at the material and poses the problem of the possi- ble existence of glass beadmaking in ancient Ladoga. This possibility was first raised by Dr. Gurevich as early as 1950 (Gurevich 1950). A similar supposition was made by L vova, who studied the beads of the earth-town in detail. Clas- sifying the variation in the waste material, this scholar concluded that glass ornaments may have been made from imported unfinished products or, more probably, from broken glass. This craft could be dated to the 8th to 10th centuries (L vova 1961). The hypothetical early glass bead-production of Ladoga is well attested to in foreign publications. But in reality it is a knotty problem. Using the data from semi-quantitative spectral analysis, L vova and
By Evgenij A. Rjabinin and Valentin A. Galibin	Naumov have undertaken a complex study of glass, waste and half-finished glassmaking products (L vova & Naumov 1970). It became clear that many finds that had been adduced as proof of local beadmaking are quite irrelevant. The most reliable evidence comprises only 2.12% of the whole glass bead material. The absence of traces of a workshop and the small quantity of material evidence sub- verted any confident discussion of local glas-
| n historical and archaeological research into the 1 Early Medieval Period in the Baltic region, Aspecial attention has been paid to the in- troduction of glassmaking to the commercial craft centres of northern Europe, the Polish coast and North- eastern Europe during the final third of the first millennium A.D. In a number of publications, evidence for the presence of this specialized craft has been taken as confirmation of the widely assumed high level of urbanization in proto-urban centres around the Baltic. But these facts frequently turn out to be challengable, and they have evoked quite opposing views (Callmer 1988). This holds particularly for Ladoga, a well-known site, which emerged in the middle of the 8th century on the main trunk of the long-distance Baltic-Volga route. One peculiarity of this site is the density of the concentration of beads in its lower layers. Most of these are of glass. This phenomenon clearly distin- guishes Ladoga from a number of otherwise simi- lar sites in eastern and northern Europe. It is suffi- cient to note that, thanks to the researches of Kepnikov (1910-1913) and Ravdonikas (1938-1959),	sworking. L vova nevertheless declared that “there is undoubtedly a probability of such manufacturing” (Lvova 1970). The new series of studies of the earth-town pro- duced by one of the present authors has provided the basic information that has allowed us to return to this critical problem for the whole Baltic coastal area. In one excavation, 1,960 beads were found in an area of 330 sq.m, and 1,870 of these beads were glass. Comparing this quantity with the number of finds per unit area excavated from previous excava- tions suggests that the phenomena is practically identical. But this resemblance based upon a sum- mary calculation breaks down seriously when the question of the distribution of the glass objects in different settlement layers is considered. In analysing the surviving collection of beads from the excavations of Ravdonikas, L'vova noted that they occurred irregularly in different layers of the earth town. Thus only 3.5% of the beads (220 exam- ples) were found in the lower layers E-3 (appr. 750- 830). The quantity increases to 24.3% (1,570 exam- ples) in the upper layers E-2 and E-l, which are dated to 840-860 and 870-930 by dendrochronology. But
110 Glass Beads
the majority of the finds, 54.05%. came from layer D
(940 to the beginning of the 11th century).
The distribution in our excavations was different.
Here more than 88% of the glass objects (1,648 ex-
amples) are concentrated in the E layers and the
majority of these (73%, 1.370 examples) come from
the lowest layer, of the second half of the 8th and
the first three decades of the 9th centuries. As a
result of excavating this small area, the collection
of ancient beads from Ladoga increased more than
sevenfold. This fact alone is clear testimony to the
peculiarity of the early settlement zone that was
uncovered in these excavations.
.All of the types of beads known from earlier in-
The blacksmith/jeweller’s workshop operated here
middle phases which allows their mass deposition
quantity of glass slag and other manufacturing waste
glass beads. Rejected beads altogether make up
0.83% of the material from the upper E layer. This is
five times higher than the proportion of waste found
in the earlier collections from Ladoga. But only clas-
sifiable examples of such finds have been taken into
consideration. The copious industrial waste (merged
and completely melted beads) has not been included.
The connexion between this and glassmaking was
trated in a substantial lens, where the section made
melted and deformed beads: (2) unperforated beads
or beads with an incomplete aperture; (3) drawn
tubes (sets of segmented beads) with clumsy tong-
here is significant. Some of these beads are repre-
sented by unperforated ingots with diffused and de-
formed eyes. L vova found a similar situation in the
possible to find the later structure with a given func-
tion next to the practically invisible workshop of the
middle range.
The building dated to around the year 815 appears
Longitudally split logs placed with the ground bark
constitutes 23% of the finds.
This area of the settlement therefore stands out
quite distinctly both for the concentration of glass
beads in the lower deposits and for the high percent-
age of waste in layer E-3. The presence here of a wide
range of melted and unfinished articles and other
glassmaking waste can be explained by attributing
an industrial character to this zone. The area opened
in the earlier excavations was originally occupied by
houses with no sign of workshops involved in the hot
treatment of materials. Our excavation entered the
periphery of the residential area, which had an origi-
nally industrial character, for the first time
chapped crucibles, melted and deformed beads, and
Archaeological data that seemed to point to the
New Data concerning early Glass Beadmaking in Ladoga (in the 8th to 10th Centuries A.D.) 111
taken, including samples of fritt, raw materials, re-
jected and burnt beads, glass fragments and vari-
ous complete beads.
To begin with, numerous samples of slag were
carefully examined. With the help of a binocular
microscope it was possible to see thin films of trans-
parent glass. Inside some of the slags, the presence
of traces of shichta that had not boiled could be seen.
Both the appearance and the chemical structure of
the slags show that they are the waste from two
types of glassmaking. Those remains containing a
lot of Al and Ti are melted fragments of clay cruci-
bles. The other slags are remains of shichta that
had not melted. The structure and chemical type of
the shichta correspond to those of ready-made glass.
The structure of the deformed beads represented
by ingots is of special interest. The results of analy-
sis show that their structure matches that of the
complete beads. Without exception, the data show
that we are dealing with glass made of alkaline raw
materials. The origins of these materials lie in the
Near and Middle East. There is a predominance of
Na and К and similar levels of Ca and Mg. These
represent the ash of saline plants with high alkaline
levels (up to 45%). Such alkaline raw materials were
used in Oriental glassmaking from ancient times.
This material was imported to Europe under the
name of roshetta or polverin to form, together with
the natural soda, the main alkaline component of the
shichta. Melting high alkaline raw materials allowed
the glass to boil at a lower temperature.
In the 10th century, the glassmakers of Central
Europe began to use more resistant, fireproof struc-
tures, new furnaces and a new boiling temperature
regime. The glassmakers of Ladoga used a technol-
ogy borrowed from the East, which also meant us-
ing imported raw materials. Only at the end of the
10th and early in the 11th centuries did the early
Russian artisans invent their own recipe for easily
melted glass based on shichta, lead, and potash ex-
tracted from the ash of wood, bushes, and straw.
The inhabitants of Ladoga are very unlikely to have
used nothing but imported cullet. Even when they
did, they did not have to colour the colourless glass.
This, however, cannot be seen in the structure of
the finished beads or the waste. The group of col-
ouring agents used in Ladoga - Cu, Co, and Pb in
combination with Sn - is a stable one. There is a high
level of Mn (more than 0.3% MnO) in almost all the
samples. This was used to make the glass colour-
less. All of these elements, technical ingredients and
chemical glass-types are also typical of the Oriental
school of glassmaking.
The character of the glassmaking waste here al-
lows us to suppose that the full cycle of manufac-
ture took place in Ladoga, including the melting of
imported materials. In this excavation, it is highly
probable that we have uncovered the only part of a
large complex with several buildings. This would
confirm the hypothesis of the possible existence of
two types of workshops. In one of them, metal and
half-finished products would have been made; in the
other, the various ornaments. Both of these work-
shop-types could have been located side-by- side. To
judge from the waste discovered, the building exca-
vated here was a workshop of the first type. But the
presence of discarded products on their ingots
points to the closeness of the second type.
This apparent confirmation of glassmaking in
Ladoga does not mean that the majority of the finds
were locally made. It goes without saying that the
presence of most glass finds is evidence of Ladoga’s
involvement in long-distance trade. It is interesting
that together with manufacture, typical for the Ori-
ental school, some quite different finds were noted.
These include beads of a milky white colour with
red decoration looking like a cross dagger (Callmer
1977, Type В 016). These were made of soda glass.
Significantly, these include Sb as a colourant, a fea-
ture that does not appear in glass of Oriental origin.
The manufacture of these points elsewhere.
The complex analysis of the finds from Ladoga
allows us to pick out the main varieties of beads.
Some of them were locally made. They include eye-
beads with blue or black backgrounds typical of
Ladoga and articles predominantly formed as drawn
tubes, segmented glass beads, and cut beads. Within
the great increase in glass bead finds from this area,
the concentration of eye-beads in the industrial zone
is especially significant. This is a point that merits
special attention. According to Lvova’s observa-
tions. the visible structure of beads of northern
Europe and Ladoga in the 8th to 10th centuries dif-
fered markedly: "Within the complex ra nge of glass
articles in northern Europe, the region of Ladoga and
Lake Ladoga is the main (almost the only) area of
distribution of small and large cut beads
cheap, serial beads’ (L vova 1977). Such examples
are obviously likely to have been made mainly in
the workshops of Ladoga.	P t
It has been shown that in the north of Eastern
Fnrnnp beads were used as the main exchange
112 Class Beads
Local glassmaking depended totally on the state of
trade- it was determined by this trade and was con-
sequently of a changing and peculiarly local charac-
ter. No connection with the products of the follow-
ing Early Russian Period emerges.
these data are of recognizable interest for the study
of the complex problem of glassmaking in the North.
Literature
navia affr. 800-1000 A. D. Und.
988: Pragmatic notes on the Early Medieval bead ma-
Gurevich, F.D., 1950: Drevnejshije busy Staroy Ladogi.
Sovetckaya Arkheologija 4.
Lvova. ZA, 1961: К voprosu о proickhozdenii stek-
Ijannykh bus v nekotorykh rajonakh Vostochnoj
Europy. Issledovanija po arkheologii SSSR. Leningrad.
- 1970: Stekljannyje busy Staroy Ladogi. Chast’ II.
Proiskhozdenije bus. ASGE 12.
- 1977: К voprosu о prichinakh pronikno-vienija
stekljynnykh bus X - nachala XI vieka v severnyje
rajony Vostochnoj Europy. ASGE 18.
113
GOLD-FOIL
BEADS
By Maibritt Jonsson
and Pete Hunner
different way, and perhaps shed new light on
unanswered questions.
Gold-foil beads have been chosen for this article,
since there is not a lot available on the actual mak-
ing of these beads. Many theories have been put
forward over the years, several of which are ques-
tionable from a modern glassmaker’s point of view.
The gold-foil beads that we have used for our re-
search are mainly finds in Scandinavia (LousgArd,
Bornholm, Denmark; Kaupang, Norway; and mate-
rial at Aalborg Historisk Museum, Denmark. At the
National Museum in Copenhagen, together with
Conservator Torben Sode, we studied the gold foil
beads found at LousgArd (the current location of our
glass studio on Bornholm).
Within the diverse range of gold-foil beads found
at LousgArd, there were certain traits that were quite
common. All of the beads had the characteristic two
layers, most often with metal foil in between the lay-
ers. In most cases, the inner layer (tube) of glass
consisted of imperfectly melted glass. By imper-
fectly, we mean that the melting process was not
complete when the glass mass was removed from
the heat source.
he following article is not written from an
archeologist’s perspective but rather through
the eyes and hands of glassmakers. We have
been fascinated by the qualities of ancient glass
beads, and view them from a glassmaker’s technical
perspective. In this way, we hope that our efforts
can help the archeologist to see glass beads in a
A technical side note:
When melting glass from raw materials (sand, soda,
potash, calcium etc.) in a crucible, the melting
temperature and the time factor are important, The
higher the temperature, the shorter the time
necessary to create a clear glass mass. Likewise,
the lower the temperature, the longer the time
needed to get clear glass.
Fig-1.
114 Glass Beads
A lot of air ano gases are pie=™.... ...
process, both when melting raw matenals and when
remelting old glass. During the melt, these air/gas
bubbles rise to the surface of the glass mass and
are released. Imagine air bubbles rising up through
a glass of mineral water in contrast to bubbles trav-
glass tube seems opalescent or opaque, giving the
tube a white, glittering appearance.
The outer layer of glass is melted to a much bet-
ter quality. We have not made chemical analyses of
the glass to determine whether or not the inner and
h becomes, allowing bubbles to rise more quickly
into lengths. The bubbles in the poorly melted glass
become so elongated in the pulling process that the
1. The cooled inner tube, covered with gold leaf,
was covered with a slightly larger outer
tube.Heated by a small, concentrated flame, the
Gold-Foil Beads 115
tubes were pulled to create the indentation and
to seal the two layers together (fig. 1.). This
method is still in fact practised in India today.
This simple method would be easy for the
travelling glassworker, who has his prefabricated
glass tubes in his baggage. Very little fuel and
space are required. We have succesfully made
gold foil beads using a candle and a small pointed
glass tube as bellows to create a concentrated
flame. These beads are much like the beads we
examined at Aalborg Historisk Museum,
although the glass-mass quality of the beads in
Aalborg were far superior to the beads from
LousgArd.
2. The cooled inner tube is covered with gold leaf
and then covered with a slightly larger outer
tube. A stiff copper wire is run through the inner
tube. The joined tubes are then heated over a
larger heat source, heating the whole object.
When the glass becomes pliable, the beads are
defined by “cutting in”, which divides the beads,
but still allows many beads (we have seen up to
five) to come from the joined tube (fig. 2.). The
wire is then dissolved in an acid solution that
would leave a clean and precise hole. If the inner
tube has a slightly larger inside diameter than
the wire, this would be visible in a cross section
of the bead. See the beads from Kaupang (Astrup
& Andersen 1988, fig. 5).
The inner cooled tube is covered with gold leaf,
put on a stiff copper wire, dipped into some hot
glass mass, pulled out allowing excess glass to
“run off’, and then the beads on the wire are
divided (fig. 3.). Under a microscope the beads
from LousgArd faced us with a puzzle. On several
of the beads, the bubbles in the outer layer of
glass have different shapes: while the top side
of the beads have small round bubbles, the
underside of the beads have elongated, lense
shaped bubbles. Our only solution to this puzzle
was that the inner layer must have been dipped
in hot glass and been lifted horizontally from the
glass mass. This would allow the top side to
retain the natural spherical form of bubbles. The
running off of the excess glass would elongate
the bubbles on the underside of the bead. The
beads are then divided using some form of metal
tool. The wire is later dissolved in acid, leaving
no residue in the holes of the beads.
4. An interesting development of the gold-foil beads
is the making of these beads without using metal
foil. Advantage is taken of the brilliant, glittering
effects of an inner tube made from “poor” glass.
The glassmaker covers the inner tube with an
outer tube made using brownish glass (it is a
simple process to colour a glass mass with iron).
In the finished beads, the glittering inner tube,
shining through the brownish glass gives an
effect very much like the “real" beads.
In conclusion, we must recognize that the ancient
glassmakers were very creative and inventive in
making gold-foil beads. Looking at the numerous
types of foil beads found at LousgArd, it is difficult
for us to judge whether different generations made
the beads in different ways or whether the types of
beads reflect the circumstances of the workplace
where the glassmaker was working.
Was the glassmaker’s workplace a glass-melting
workshop, or a temporary assembly workshop us-
ing prefabricated tubes with a limited heat source -
or both? The second possibility is the most likely if
one assumes that the glassworkers were nomadic.
116 Class Beads
Literature
foiled glass beads from the Viking period. Acta
117
EXPERIMENTAL
REPRODUCTION
OF SPIRAL BEADS
By Rosemarie Lierke,
Frederick Birkhill and
Pavel Molnar
It is often assumed that glass could be cast in
multiple moulds or by the lost wax process as
easily as metal, or that glass may be cut and
reheated at will. Both assumptions are not true.
These methods are possible, but very time-
consuming; they are difficult and as a rule unlikely
to produce the special features shown by ancient
artefacts. Recent research has shown that cutting
and grinding has not been used as often as
previously assumed (Lierke 1993 & in press). Glass
lends itself in the first place to spontaneous and fast
manufacturing methods while it is in a hot plastic
condition. This makes glass different from any other
material. But one has to know its properties.
Hot glass, for instance, has a remarkable high
surface tension at normal working temperature,
which means a natural tendency towards a rounded,
smooth surface. Hot glass will cool and stiffen when
it touches something cold, but it will stick to almost
anything of about the same high temperature. For
this and other reasons casting is rather problematic.
It is possible to mould delicate details in half-moulds,
where some pressure can be applied and the glass
is kept below the temperature where it sticks to the
mould. It is, however, impossible to get fine details
by casting (i.e. pouring) glass using any other
method unless some yet unknown, non-stick mould
material could be used.
If glasses of different colour are fused, they need
to have the same thermal expansion. But, even if
they have the same thermal expansion in the criti-
cal low temperature range, they may behave differ-
ently at high temperatures. One glass may be al-
ready quite fluid when the other is still stiff.
Glass cracks if cooled down too fast and devitri-
fies if cooled down too slowly in a critical range. If
glass is to be cut or engraved, perfect annealing is
especially important. This means that perfect cool-
ing is required from working temperature down to
room temperature in a determined time tempera-
ture relation. The cutting itself is bound to intro-
duce new stress into the glass, which can cause the
glass simply to “explode" when reheated.
These examples may help us to understand that
even if glass-working looks and is simple, it needs a
lot of experience.
This is a long introduction to the short story: how
to make spiral beads. It seemed to be necessary
since occasionally the making of these beads also
has been explained by the use of the lost wax proc-
ess or a two part mould with subsequent engraving
and reheating or other even more laborious meth-
ods.
M.A. Zepezauer has made a survey of the com-
mon types of spiral beads in Austria, Switzerland
and Germany (Zepezauer 1989). She makes a dis-
tinction between globular beads, those with three
or four protrusions, which she calls facets, and cy-
lindrical beads. The last type is of no concern here.
If one forgets about the spirals for a moment,
there are two methods for making beads with pro-
Fig 1. The making of tightly wound spiral be,
(A and В two methods to change the axis of rotation)
118 Glass Beads
ittp I. J(iUk jUbi u
dpirauJ <mto
*"* *- rd.
steP^ GUU* pwitur^
, itticiud to
1 COM.
----------------
Tken melted off here.,
Step 3, GIum
mitei into
nippU
But, if time and exact size do not count, heating alone
methods for spiral beads: one for simple spirals with
few turns, the other for elaborate specimens.
Step +,
Three nipple*
attached to rod
with bead
------ I ЧШ mem norns - from plain
globular wound beads: either the horns are applied
wrth additmnal material, or they are drawn out from
the bead itself. The opposite way is even simpler: to
make a globular bead from a bead with protrusions
Ле bead is heated and the horns will shrink back
pis is Ле effect of the surface tension of hot glass
A contemporary beadmaker needc t« ,.,ли.	,
were trailed on to a basic wound bead just like
the contrasting coloured thread starts winding
from the centre of the first spiral and goes on to
the next spiral, this time winding from the outside
our experiments are more elaborate beads. There
to 10 turns, with very little distance between
turns (Henderson 1987). It certainly is not
possible to trail such spirals as easily as the
examples just mentioned. But it is not too difficult
either (fig. 1): horns are applied or pulled out
from a basic wound bead (1 and 2) as usual. In
the next step the axis of rotation is altered to
make a more controlled trailing possible. This
could be achieved by several methods. Two
possible methods are shown in the drawing: A
(as proposed by Pavel Molnar) and B. After a
spiral has been trailed onto the first horn (3) the
axis is changed again (4) and once more for the
third horn (5). As last step the whole bead is
neated and becomes a globular bead with three
spirals incorporated in its surface (6).
Experimental Reproduction of Spiral Beads 119
This is the theory. Frederick Birkhill in Pinckney,
Michigan, USA and Pavel Molnar in Hamburg, Ger-
many independently volunteered to do some experi-
ments. These experiments were not executed sci-
entifically. The original glass composition was not
available, and no attempt was made to duplicate the
ancient heat source, which quite certainly was a
small open fire with a forced air supply. Instead, the
pointed hot flame of a modern blow torch was used
together with the easily flowing, homogeneous glass
material of today. The result certainly does not look
like the ancient originals. It would look different if
a stiff glass material had been worked slowly, at a
low temperature, as one must assume was the case
in the original situation.
Fred Birkhill (fig. 2) sent his bead with informa-
tion about the different method he used. The ap-
pearance of the originals does not suggest that his
method was the one used by our early ancestors.
Nevertheless, Fred Birkhill shows that even a spi-
ral around a long rod-shaped horn can be melted
back and become finally a narrow spiral of many
turns in the surface of the bead. His method also
seems to support the idea that some of the very fre-
quent beads with small spiralled horns could have
been made by simply touching a plain wound bead
with a prefabricated spiral rod. The verification of
this idea requires further experiment.
Pavel Molnar (fig. 3) kindly made some beads
according to the drawing. With the necessary res-
ervations mentioned above, concerning the differ-
ent glass material and working temperature, the
proposed manufacturing method has been shown
in principle to be right by his contribution. It is
neither possible nor necessary to assume a diffi-
cult lost-wax process or the use of two- or multi-
pie part moulds for the manufacturing of spiral
Typical features of the originals support the
propsed method. This applies to trailing irregulari-
ties (Henderson 1987:81, for instance G5 or G8) as
well as to the tightly wound spiral channels
(Henderson 1987:85 & 87, for instance G66 and
G91). Because of their strong curvature and very
small distance (1/10 or even 1/100 part of a mm),
these channels can neither be explained by the ac-
tion of a cutting wheel in the glassy matrix nor by
moulding. The V-shaped cross section of these chan-
nels can be explained be the double action of hot
transformation: sinking in of the spirals, melting
back of the horns. Experimental proof of this detail
very strongly would depend on the use of the origi-
nal glass material and heating method. While it cer-
tainly would have been possible to trail two glass
threads of different colour side by side, this method
is not supported by the appearance of the originals.
Literature
Henderson, J., 1987: The archaeology and technology of
glass from Meare Village East. In: J.M. Coles (ed.):
Meare Village East. Somerset Levels Papers 13, 1987.
Lierke, R., 1993: It was the turning wheel, and not the
lathe. Mold pressing and mold turning of hot glass
in ancient glass vessel production. Glastech. Ber. 66,
Heft 12, 1993.
 in press: Vasa diatreta. Ein kritischer Exkurs Ober die
Glasschneidekunst der Romer. Teil 1. Antike Welt,
Heft 4. 1994.
Zepezauer, M.A., 1989: Perles i dёcor ocuk spiral* de
La Тёпе moyenne et finale. In: M. Feugёre (ed.): Le
verre preromain en europe occidentale. Montagnac.
Fig. 4. Spiral beads made after drawing in fig. 1 by Pavel
121
A RESPONSE TO R. LIERKE’S PAPER	surface of a wax bead-model to take the spiral decoration as part of the lost-wax technique. This would afford the closest possible control of the position of the inlaid spiral decoration. Where it has been possible to examine the decoration in cross- section (i.e. in a broken section), the shape of the groove in which the decoration was located was either U-shaped or V-shaped. This suggests firmly that these grooves in the surface of the beads were created specifically to take the opaque yellow glass paste as part of the pate de verre technique and were
By Julian Henderson	created using the lost-wax technique. Grooves with this profile would not be present if the glass had simply been trailed on to the surface of the bead as in the technique suggested by Lierke. 4. In the p£te de verre technique, a layer of yellow glass paste would have been applied to the colour- less bead’s surface and into the grooves especially created for it. The bead would then have been heated so as to allow the yellow glass to fuse to the bead surface. The outer surface of the bead would then have been polished away to expose the bead decoration. Evidence of surface polishing has been found on many of the spirally- decorated beads from Meare, both between the spirals and even around the ends of the bead hole.
1. There is no absolute way of proving that moulds were not used for the manufacture of chevron- decorated and spirally-decorated beads at the early Iron-age site of Meare Lake Village in Somerset; there is both technological and archaeological evidence which suggests that moulds were used for their manufacture. This does not, however, rule out the possibility that the production technique described by R. Lierke was used for the manufacture of some of the beads. The presence of the remains of bead moulds for the manufacture of chevron- decorated beads at Meare can not be ignored (Henderson 1981, 1987); the colourless globular glass beads were decorated with opaque yellow chevrons and display many of the features which are also found on beads decorated with opaque yellow spirals from the same site.	5. Although it might be easier to use the production technique described by Lierke, it does not follow that this was the technique employed and the points 1-4 above constitute the actual physical evidence (together with experimentation with various possible techniques of manufacture of the beads described in the original publication in 1987) for the suggested technique originally put forward in the publication of the glass (Henderson 1987). Literature Henderson, J., 1981: A report on the glass excavated from Meare Village West 1979. Somerset Levels Papers 7. - 1987: Archaeological and technical examination of the glass from Meare East. In: J.M. Coles (ed.): Meare
2. Three groups of spirally-decorated beads which fall into tightly defined size categories were produced at Meare, suggesting that a different mould size was used to manufacture each size category.	Lake Village East. Somerset Levels Papers 13.
3. The technique of bead decoration I suggested
(Henderson 1987) involved the incision of the
123
SHOULD WE
BELIEVE IN
EXPERIMENTS?
By Tine Gam Aschenbrenner
Under this title, I shall discuss some thoughts
and ideas developed during my own
experiments with glass beadmaking. The
main source material derives from the famous Ribe
excavations (Bencard 1990; Bencard & Jorgensen
1990; Feveile et al. 1990; Frandsen & Jensen 1988a,
1988b, 1988c & 1990; Jensen 1991; Nasman 1979).
This paper will focus on the relationship between
the archaeological remains and the present results
of tests. For a more detailed description of different
beadmaking techniques and other problems
concerning manufacture, I refer to other relevant
articles (Gam 1990,1991a. 1991b, 1992 & in press).
To use archaeological experiments as a scientific
method and analogy one must be aware of both the
potential and the limitations of the method. Some
basic guidelines have been stated by Ian Hodder
(1982). In any analogy one has to distinguish be-
tween a formal coherence or likeness - and relational
ones. The formal likeness considers only the out-
ward appearance, and is therefore of a very limited
value. A far better analogy is the relational one,
which is indispensable to the credibility of consist-
ency between archaeological facts and the experi-
ments. Since we cannot re-create the past, compro-
mises inevitably form part of reconstructions, but
our principal duty is to show that they are of minor
significance. To quote Hodder: “The aim is to throw
light on what is not known (the uncertain likeness)
by demonstrating the strength and relevance of the
positive analogy, while showing that the negative like-
ness is of limited consequence” (Hodder 1982:26).
Dealing with ancient glass beads (or any other
material from the past) the basic subject of any ex-
perimental interpretation must be the archaeologi-
cal facts. In this case the beads themselves would
come first, but they are far from being the only con-
ceivable data. From the workshop area all other ar-
ticles of glass are important, such as raw materials,
half-finished products and waste. Tools and other
possible workshop remains must also be considered.
These objects can be examined for their physical
appearance - what they look like - and for their ma-
terial composition. The latter can affect the results
Fig- 1.: Test bead with combed pattern with iron scales left
from the hook used to pull out the threads
V "a
Fig. 2.: Bead with combed pattern from Ribe showing a
similar (?) trace from the tool used.
124 Glass Beads
111111111111111!1|111Ш111|1111|[ШЩ1ЗД1ЙМ
14	15	16	17	18	19

s a ® ® J g
а а Эa > ®
s a t
Fig. 3: Polychrome beads from Hike. Threadband-decorated
beads /right), thread-decorated beads (centre), inclusive one
with a combed pattern (below), and reticella beads (left).
Should we believe in experiments? 125
s	i
П1ШП111Ш1Ш11Ш111111Ш1111М
13	14	15	16	17	1 :
a bead mandrel, the lump of glass must be fixed to
something (unless a lamp glass technique is to be
presumed). This thing would be a gathering iron:
an iron stick. Working at temperatures around 1000°
C, the innermost layer of glass will melt together
with the iron, which leaves a ferrous scale in the
cavity of the glass (cullet) when this is removed from
the gathering iron (fig. 9). Similar pieces could be
identified in the waste from Ribe, and on one of the
pieces a spot test proved that the grey layer really
was iron. An examination of the glass from another
Scandinavian site with signs of bead production
(Kaupang, Norway), could again identify pieces of
waste which could be interpreted as cullet. Unfor-
tunately, no tests have yet been made to verify this.
The tweezer marks, the originals as well as the
replicas, inspired further definitions of the waste. A
tweezer mark’ is my term for pieces of glass with
an impression from a forked, flexible tool. These
are often drop-shaped, with a flattened cross sec-
tion. It is not possible to determine the profile of
Fig. 8.: Two testbeads with threadsbands. The bands are
turning over, unlike the original beads, but this is rather
the tool from the original pieces, and that the rep-
lica marks turned out to have the same drop shape
does not prove that the pair of tweezers used in the
test work were necessarily like the tweezers used
some 1200 years ago. The only correspondence is
that the modern tool had the same kind of cooling
effect on the glass, as the cracks appeared identical
to the tweezer marks from Ribe (fig. 10). During
the first stage of the experiments, the tweezer marks
were produced as waste from the thread-decorated
beads. Each thread to be applied on the bead was
first pulled out with the tweezers, and the mark
nipped off. Later, the thread was made directly ‘on’
the bead, by sticking the gather to the bead and then
pulling while turning the bead at the same time. With
this technique, no tweezer marks were produced.
Furthermore, the number of tweezer marks from
Ribe, compared with the beads in respect of colour,
showed a high quantity of tweezer marks with the
Fig. 9.: Waste cullet with a ferrous scales from the gathering
iron; from the testwork (left), and from Ribe (right).
126 Glass Beads
1Ш
Fig. 10.: Tweezermarks from the experiments (left) and from
Ribe (right). Note the identical craks (bottom).
bead colours blue and green, and only few with the
thread colours white, yellow, and red. This argu-
ment, however, can easily be undercut, as the
tweezer marks did not contain any contamination.
They were re-usable. A specific pattern of colour
combinations says nothing about the different types
of beads produced at any particular site, since the
glass (the tweezer marks) could be remelted. This
is not the case with the cullet previously mentioned.
The iron scale in the cullet makes this glass useless
for other beads or decoration. From this, it should
be obvious that tweezer marks do not determine
whether glass beadmaking took place at a certain
archaeological site. They might as well have been
imported to the place. The presence of cullet, on
the other hand, is a far more reliable indication of
production, as there would be no reason for trans-
porting contaminated and useless glass around.
When characterizing the material from an ar-
chaeological site, it would be a good idea to qualify
the different categories of glass, instead of merely
quantifying them. Following this procedure, a far
more realistic impression of the possible work un-
dertaken there appears. The one critical point is that
we do not know to what extent the objects surviv-
ing and recovered reflect the ancient manufactur-
ing situation.
Concerning the furnace, we only have very vague
indications of what the heat source looked like. What
survives of the furnaces found in Ribe consisted of
1979:125). In one of these a disc of burnt clay with a
hole in the middle was found (fig. 11). This was prob-
ably a guard for the nozzle of a pair of bellows.
The furnaces used for the experiments were all
of a low, open construction, with an air inlet hole in
one side and a pair of bellows to raise the tempera-
ture (fig. 12). This kind of furnace, however, had
some disadvantages. Firstly, there was considerable
heat loss, and considerable danger of getting the
glass contaminated with charcoal and ash. The lat-
ter problem is partly of an aesthetic character, which
the beadmakers in Ribe also had to take into con-
sideration. We know this from beads with similar
bits of ash or charcoal stuck to the surface, though
the majority of the beads have a smooth, clean sur-
face, showing that they managed to surmount the
problem.
A far more crucial point is the glazing of the bot-
tom, which appeared in all the test furnaces, due to
the fact that the heat centre was only a few centime-
tres from the air inlet hole (fig. 13). Such glazings
are unparalleled in Ribe or elsewhere. The most
plausible explanation is that our air inlet was placed
too close to the ground. If it could be established
some 10-15 cm above the bottom, the glazing effect
would probably not appear. The consequence of this
Should we believe in experiments? 127
Fig. 13: Glazing of the bottom of a test fireplace.
is a higher construction generally. Unfortunately,
this is now just a hypothesis, as I have not had the
chance to make further furnace reconstructions to
test how this would function. The major problem
concerned in any reconstruction of the furnaces
from Ribe is that the surviving pieces are so poor.
We also know from several excavations in the town
that the workshop area was divided into rows of
plots, and that each plot was cleared from time to
time. This means that any structure left above
ground level was presumably demolished.
Since no plot has yet been totally excavated, we
have to arm ourselves with patience; pieces of the
puzzle may appear in the future.
Finally, returning to the question in the title, one
could claim that I have done everything wrong, and
that the results are unsatisfactory. This is partly
true. No doubt the outcome would have been dif-
ferent if I had begun the testwork with the same
experience as I had at the end. However, the ques-
tion does not deal with ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, because
we will never be able to verify or refute our theo-
ries. The aim of any experiment must be to find the
best analogy to the archaeological material. No mat-
ter how obvious a solution might seem to be, we
must always seek to make it probable on the basis
of the remains from the past.
Although I hope to have illustrated some of the
possibilities, difficulties and dilemmas any experi-
menter has to face, it has also been my aim to make
it clear that the question can be answered with a
convincing Yes, if we take the right precautions.
Literature
Bencard, M„ 1990: The Stratigraphy and Dating of 8th
Odense.
- & LB. Jorgensen, 1990: The Foundation of Ribe. Anti-
quity 64/244. Cambridge.
Feveile, C., S. Jensen & K. Ljungberg, 1990: Ansgars Ribe
Rosenalld i Ribe 1989. By, marsk og geest 1. Ars-
beretning 1988, Den Antikvariske Samling i Ribe.
Frandsen, LB. & S. Jensen, 1988a: Kongen bod. Skalk 4.
1988. Hojbjerg.
-	1988b: Pre-Viking and Early Viking Age Ribe. Journal
-	1988c: Hvor 1A Ribe i vikingetiden? KUML 1986.
Hojbjerg.
-	1990: The Dating of Ribe's earliest Culture Layer. Jour-
Gam, T., 1990: Perlemager af fag. Skalk 1,1990. Hojbjerg.
- 1991a: Glasperlefremstilling i yngre jernalder og
vikingetid. En analyse af teknologi og hAndvasrk.
Eksperimentel Arkaologi. Studier i Kulturog Teknologi
-1991b: Glasperlefremstilling. Eksperimentalarkajolo-
taktstencil 33. UmeA.
-	1992: Prehistoric Glass Technology - Experiments and
Analysis. Journal of Danish Archaeology 9. Odense.
-	in press: Experiments in glass - present and future. In:
Annales de 12e Congres de I’Association Internationale
pour I’Historie du Verre, Vienne 26-31 aout 1991.
Hodder, I., 1982: The Present Past. Cambridge.
Jensen, S., 1991: Dankirke-Ribe. Fra handelsgArd til
handelsplads. In: P. Mortensen & B.M. Rasmussen
(eds.): Hevdingesamfund og Kongemagt. Fra stamme
til stat 2. Jysk Arkasologisk Selskabs Skrifter XXII.
Hojbjerg.
NAsman, U., 1979: Die Herstellung von Glasperlen. In:
M. Bencard (ed.): Wikingerzeitliches Handwerk in
Ribe. Acta Archaeologica 49, 1978. Kobenhavn.
Tine Gam Aschenbrenner : Should we believe in experiments ?
Fig.3 (reverse and upside down) -> left = right and vice versa.
(text fits fig. 51 (the picture shown is a mistake, showing beads with
charcoal stuck to the surface)
Fig.6 & 7 (pictures show reticella bead, and not thread band decorated bead)
Fig.9
Fig.10
(reverse) -> left = right.
(reverse) -> left = right.
Glass Beads is the proceedings of an international
seminar on glass beads held at the Historical-
Archaeological Experimental Centre in Lejre in
1992. The book is a comprehensive collection of 22
papers on the topic under the subheadings: Cultural
History, Technology, Experiment and Analogy. The
contributors are 26 researchers from 9 different
European countries.
Glass Beads is the second volume in the serie,
Studies in Technology and Culture published by
the Historical-Archaeological Experimental Centre.
The first volume contains the publication of 11
different experiments conducted at the Centre in
Lejre in the years from 1988-1991.