Link to record of archeological report where the above picture was taken from.
My most recent project has been to recreate the outer necklace from the above image (grave 44). This necklace is being recreated for the Artifacts of a Life event in September
--These beads are almost all of a style that I have recreated already (as they are mostly all shown in Brugman's typology which I recreated as an earlier project). However, what makes this necklace significant is that the order it is strung in was preserved in the grave. This very rarely happens! As a result, studying this necklace can perhaps tell me something about Anglo-Saxon bead fashions and necklace styles, especially if I compare it to the other two Anglo-Saxon necklaces I have reconstructed so far.
---I also hope to use my knowledge of Anglo-Saxon beads and Brugman's Anglo-Saxon bead typology to date this necklace, and see if my dating of the necklace agrees with the dates from the report. Dating graves is one reason that archeologists develop typologies of objects.
The necklace from grave 44 has:
17 amber beads (which i will recreate using amber colored glass
25 shaped or polychrome beads
=Total 42 beads
I first came across this necklace as a pintrest image when I was doing a Google image search trying to come up with an idea for Artifacts of a Life. I was then able to track down the archeological report from the excavation using the information on the museum card about the item, and order the report on interlibrary loan, which gave me a LOT of information about the necklace, as well as a much better picture.
However, as Artifacts of a Life requires more than one object, I am also thinking of recreating the other two small bead strings pictured here (graves 19 and 50). These strings are much much simpler. If I am able to make progress of buildings period bead kiln, I may even be able to make at least the smallest string using a period fire source!The smallest necklace only requires a few colors of glass, and only has 20 beads, all monochrome. Normally, this would not be something I would not be interested in recreating (it is too simple to be interesting to me at this point)...but, it would be perfect to try with my period fire experiments, as I will be basically learning how to make beads anew using a different source of heat. I am very excited about this idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll try to post more about this necklace as I work on finishing it. It is actually almost complete, but I have some scribbled thoughts about my process and thoughts as I was working that woudl be nice to type up less formally in blog form, before including those thoughts in formal documentation. I have tended not to make process posts, but this is something I've been encouraged to try by a few people.
