Anglo Saxon Sword/Amulet Beads

Below are large Anglo Saxon sword (and amulet) beads that I gave away at Mudthaw. These are all likely larger than a quarter (20-25 mm across). And even then they are smaller than the period examples. Below is some really quick research on sword beads, including links to where I got the info for the designs.

• In Anglo Saxon graves some large disc beads are found that are "distinguishable from the beads of normal size" found in graves. (Evison 2008)
• Female Gaves:(Evison 2008)
• "When found with other beads at the neck of a female grave, it is assumed that the function was the same as that of other beads, i.e. decoration with possible magical properties."
• "If found at the left hip in a container with other objects, it is possible that it was functional as a spindle whorl."
• Male Graves: (Evison 2008).When found "in connection with a sword it may  be regarded as a sword bead"
• "to be used with the 'peace strings' (note: what does this mean, is it like peace tying a sword at the Ren. faire?)
• "or perhaps it was believed to have healing properties"
• swords "occurred in only a small percentage of male graves"  -meaning the number of sword beads found in small
• The beads are most of, and first, made of glass ) but can also be made form other materials, such as amber, bone, crystal  (Evison 2008, Evison 1967)
• The beads are "almost always found at a distance of about six inches from the pommel, they almost always occur singly, and are never interlinked (Evison 1967).
• "The beads appear to be functionless as far as the working of the sword is concerned. But "a utilitarian purpose cannot be ruled out" as the beads were "found close to the sword-blade, a few inches below the grip." Because "this is the usual position for the attachment of a strap to the scabbard" it is possible "that a beads was sometimes used for the passage of a strap so that [the sword] could be drawn up tightly and firmly against the scabbard." Evison 1967).
• "May have magical significance in view of the fact that some of the materials of which they were made are knows to have been widely valued for their magical prop (Evison 1967).
• "it is not known precisely how these beads were attached to the sword." One bead was found "with a leather thong still attached and passing under the top of the scabbard. A metal scabbard mouth fitting is the obvious place for fixing it, and a number of such mounts are provided with a small buckle, projecting plate, or a perforated lug on the lower edge at the back....the fact that the perforation was on the lower side of the mount.... is in favor of it being intended for something suspended, such as a bead" (Evison 1967).

 The catalog at the end of Evison 1967 lists some of the following types of sword beads beads found in English graves:

• Green glass bead, diam 1 1/4 in.
• Very dark olive-green translucent glass disc bead, opaque yellow zigzag trail, diam 2.8cm.
• Amber disc, one with a diam. of 2.2 cm, another measuring 2.8 found in a different grave.
• Yellow glass bead (no measurements given)
• Cylindrical glass bead, with red, yellow and green reticella threads, diam 2.8cm
• Large glass bead, disc with zigzag trail in sunflower estrangement (no colors or measurements given)
• Bluish-green glass disk with red trails cable-fashion on circumfrence (no measurements given)
• Translucent mid-green glass disc, with white zigzag trails, diam 3.5 cm
• Black glass bead, one side flat, the other convex, white trails in five-petal shape, diam 4.3cm
• Oval black glass bead, light-blue crossing trails and red dots, diam 2.5cm

 Tillerman beads has a nice list of amulet and sword beads, with grave citations that they reproduce. I copied a bunch of their designs for the beads pictures above, using one or two designs from the source cited above.

This may be a resource to look into later to learn more about the social meaning of such things in Anglo-Saxon society: Meaney, A. (1981). Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones, British Archaeological Reports, 96.




Sources: 
Evison 2008: https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/0%20Prelims.pdf 
Evison 1967: http://www.amazon.com/Dover-Ring-Sword-Other-Sword-Rings-Archaeologia/dp/0854310614 (Mostly from pages 2-4 of this long document, with a catalog list of sword beads on pages 81-84, and drawings of beads in figure 2-p. 105, figure 3-p. 106)

Video from a real Anglo-Saxon Cemetary Excavation

I've started watching a few documentaries on the Anglo-Saxon to give me a bit more background knowledge of the period, as most of the bead work I have done has centered on that time/place. In my searches of You Tube I came across an British TV series called Time Team. Its kind of like a cross between a reality show & a documentary about archeological excavations. They had an episode about excavating an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in season 8 of their show.

Time Team Season 8 Episode 1: Anglo Saxon Cemetery

This was awesome to watch, because much of my research has focused on the reports generated form these excavations, so I got to see the reality of how these excavations are carried out. I think I will recommend this as a fun resource the next time I teach my class about making beads using archeological reports.

Sadly, I have not yet found a complete report written up about this excavation. This Link is the closest I have come. I was hoping i would find a more complete write up and analysis of this excavation, as they seem to have found a male grave with some monochrome and amber beads!


Note: A few days later I found several other episodes of this TV show where they excavate an Anglo-Saxon cemetary

• Season 18, Episode 2 
• Season 11, Episode 4  -several beads were found, including a Traffic Light beads with twisted trails, and a white bead, with red dots and blue overlapping trails (41:30). http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/files/52568_South_Carlton.pdf

Grave 50 Portway Andover

Below is a picture of a bead string (grave 50) from the  Portway Andover excavation report.  This is the third bead string I have recreated from that report, and I completed this project for the Artifacts of a Life event at the end of September.

Historic Glass Beads

This bead string, (which is interpreted as a bracelet) had 25 glass beads, 4 amber beads (which I recreated in amber colored glass), one fragmentary metal bead (which I did not replicate), and two Roman coins (small copper colored store bought medallions were used as a substitute).

My recreation

Thoughts on my recreation process

None of the beads on this string were very advanced, so technically, this was a relatively easy bead string for me to recreate. Any difficulties I had in recreating this bead string came about because some of the beads had uneven shapes or mistakes in their design, which I tried to replicate this time around as exactly as I could manage.

Replicating beads with specific mistakes actually takes me a good bit more time than replicating perfect beads of the same design, because I have to observe the historic bead a bit more closely to figure out how to make the same mistake found on the historic bead. It also takes the same amount of technical skill to replicate a specific mistake on a bead.

If I was talking with a newer bead maker who was interested in reproducing this bead string, I would encourage that person to attempt to make the beads as best they could, and not to worry about replicating a specific mistake. But, if they did make a mistake on a bead, I would tell that person to keep those beads with mistakes in the final project. In that way, I think a bead string would come to have the "feel" of the original, with its combination of beads with imperfections, and more perfectly executed beads.

Mistake Beads

To the right are examples of my "mistake" beads, beads which did not make it into the final bracelet. In most cases, this I rejected these beads because they did not match the extant necklace well enough, not because my overall technique was poor. I'll likely keep at least a few of these beads  to be given away later.  Some of the reasons these beads were rejected include
--wrong color: I was trying to mix my own transparent light brown for one of the beads, and it came out too dark
--wrong shape: I didn't notice that the documentation provided a better view of the bead until after I created it.
--wrong size: I made the bead a bit too big the first time
--wrong decoration pattern:  I included one too many or too few waves on a few of the beads, either by accident, or because I did not look closely enough at the historic bead the first time. In one case, I was also trying to replicate a bead with a very sloppy decorative technique, and gave it a few tries to see which one looked most like the period bead.
--large air bubbles in the bead: This is the one actual technique "mistake" that I made during this recreation project. I trapped several large air bubbles in one of the beads. This is a problem, because air bubbles increase the risk of bead breakage.

Grave 19 Portway Andover

This small bead string is from Grave 19 of the Portway, Andover Anglo-Saxon Cemetary.

I completed a recreation of the above small bead string (likely a bracelet) over the course of 3 evenings. It took 2 evenings to make the beads, and 1 to remake a few beads that I was not fully happy with. I was originally not very excited about this project. I primarily made it to make sure that I would have enough items to enter for the Artifacts of a Life event, the event I created the larger necklace from Portway for. The technical level of this bead string is very low for me (no decoration, minimal shaping), and I didn't think it all that pretty to begin with. However, I'm glad that I did recreate this string, because actually seeing my recreation transformed how I thought about the bead string.

In person, this small bead string is quite adorable. Maybe my feelings changed because I could actually hold the string, instead of just looking at it on the page. Maybe it's the fact that a newly created bead string is so much more shiny than the historic one, which had been in the ground for centuries. Having the bead string in front of me also helped to emphasize just how symmetrical it was, especially towards the center of the string, and my modern eye really appreciates this symmetry. The order of the beads in the grave was mostly preserved, so this bead string is a likely example of the aesthetics under which Anglo-Saxons strung their beads.  The symmetry is not perfect, but it is quite obviously there, which is something I have found, to a greater or lesser extent, with most of the Anglo-Saxon bead strings I have recreated.  The distinction between light and dark beads is also very evident (another idea which is prevalent in the Anglo-Saxon aesthetic). There are many dark blue/black beads, with a fewer lighter white/red beads placed at regular intervals among the darker beads.

A few technical thoughts about my reproduction:
-The beads were made to match the size of the historic beads to within a couple of millimeters size.
-I forgot to try to match bead perforation sizes with the historic necklace, so that aspect of the recreation is not as accurate. However its not something that is very evident when the necklace is displayed/worn.
-A few of the beads (the white ones) were simply not listed in the description of the grave. The necklace is described as being made of "glass and other beads." I think these white beads are not glass (maybe stone?) but I've recreated them here as glass beads because that is the material I work with.
-I was not happy with my first attempt at recreating the bicone white bead, because my bicone was much straighter and more precise than the original. It just didn't look right when strung. So, I tried again, this time making it a bit rounder and it worked out well.  I also burned the glass slightly the first time, so I was a bit more careful the second time and turned down my flame and tried not to overwork the bead.

The bead on the bottom is my first attempt. The top bead is my second attempt.

-The same thing mentioned above happened for the largest black bead in the string. The edges and lines of my first recreated bead were too straight, so I tried again it, rounding the bead out slightly more the second time
-Finally, bead #25 is an odd one. It has red glass at the core, and then clear glass over-top, but it is not described in the report as an "encased" bead, and it's very unevenly made. The authors of the report make reference to a "swirl technique" which was referenced in Beck's bead classification from 1927, so I've ILL'ed that book to learn more.

Notes about the aesthetics of Anglo-Saxon beads

The information below was collected as a result of feedback from this years K&Q's A&S competition. I'll continue to add information to this write up as I find it (I have a few more ILL books on the way), but I'm posting this now on my blog because I have some other research and documentation I need to work on at the moment. This was however, and interesting question to try to answer, and it took me in directions I did not expect to be going with my research, which was a good thing. I'll need to  figure out later how I can incorporate some of what I've written into my more formal A&S documentation. Please consider the following a rough draft, as some citation information still needs to be added or checked for accuracy.

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My recreation efforts have focused on the early Anglo-Saxon period, between the 5th-8th century (400-700).  The main reason for this early focus is that beads from this time period are the ones that are available to us to study. As Anglo-Saxon society converted to Christianity, people stopped being burred with grave goods, and it is from grave goods that most of our knowledge of glass beads arises. However, when I read about Anglo-Saxon art, glass beads are almost never discussed. When  historians look at early Anglo-Saxon (or Migration Period) art, it is the metalwork they give all their attention. Other studies dismiss early period art entirely, focusing on the art that was influenced by the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. According to one source "little of artistic interest survives from" the early Anglo-Saxon period,"and the art that is important and worth consideration are " stone buildings...crosses and the production of liturgical books, vessels, and vestments" (Oxford Art Online, "Anglo-Saxon Art). Where glass specifically is mentioned as an art form, the focus is on stained glass in churches during the later period. 

This leads to the question, why are beads not considered by art historians as being worth studying. Evidence from graves shows us that beads were significant and highly symbolic objects of adornment for women of all ranks. Perhaps the reason they are not given considerations by art historians is due to the simplistic (and sometimes rough) nature of their decoration. When compared to beads produced in the middle east during and after this time period, Anglo-Saxon beads are rather crude. Beads have also have a history of having been ignored by archeologists (Mannion; Brugmann) and only in the last several decades has a very serious study of them begun to take place.

Regardless of the reasons, glass beads can still be considered in light of broader aesthetic styles of the time period. However, because I have not found an academic who has made this connection for me, much of what I have to say here regarding glass beads will be my own thoughts in light of the academic research I have done.

To view pictures of Anglo-Saxon beads as you read, you can visit these two pages from my blog

Mucking Typology
Brugmann's Typology

To discuss early Anglo-Saxon artistic style it also helps to research the art of the Migration Period, the time from the 5th-8th century when the Germanic tribes overran and settled in areas once controlled by the declining Roman empire. Early Anglo-Saxon art is heavily influenced by the styles of the Germanic tribes who settled in England. While some Migration period art forms may have contained lingering Roman influences, several sources note that Anglo-Saxon art, including glass beads, do not seem to have been influenced much by the Romans at all (Guido 3-4, Owen-Crocker 7).

The Roman's preferred small shaped monochrome shaped beads in transparent blue and green (Brugmann 28-29). This style is nothing like the colorful and decorative Germanic style. According to one art historian, the "relationship between Saxons in England and the Saxons on the continent was never forgotten. There as a relationship of taste too...the tastes of Anglo-Saxon England were never markedly different from the tastes on the European Mainland" (Dodwell, 24). In fact, many Anglo-Saxon glass beads were imported form the continent or based off of continental designs (Brugmann).

Adornment was important to the semi-nomadic Germanic tribes, because these items were basically portable and very visible wealth (Dubin 73). As a result, much of the surviving artwork from the Migrationon period on the continent and in early Anglo-Saxon England consists of "decoration applied to portable equipment" that has been recovered as grave goods  (Oxford Art Online, "Migration Period"). One of the most "distinctive features" of Migration period art its range of color and surface patterning, seen mainly in jewelry" (Oxford Art Online, " Migration Period Art).  This stylistic preference was actual brought to Europe from more Eastern civilizations  (south Russian and Iranian traditions) by the Germanic tribes, which had been nomadic long before they overran the remains of the Roman Empire.

In general, early Migration period art consisted of "abstract geometric designs, together with simple human and animal figures of symbolic purpose" (Oxford Art Online, "Migration Period"). This style is perhaps best expressed in metalwork. Early Anglo-Saxon metalwork was"dominated by highly stylized animal and human figures from the Germanic Tradition" and sources note that the animals likely held symbolic or spiritual significance for the wearers (Oxford Art Online, "Anglo-Saxon Art)  As a result, one would think that these human and animal figures would also be found on beads, however, there is likely a practical reason that they are not. While it is relatively easy to add geometric designs to beads in the form of dots, lines, waves,  zig-zags  to make patterns on glass beads, my experiences attempting to make SCA order medallions has taught me that drawing  more complex designs on a glass bead is very difficult, even with my modern torch set up. Now, sculpting animals and figures can be done a bit more easily. The Phoenicians, for example, made glass beads in the shape of animal and human heads. However, this is not something that is found in Anglo-Saxon glass. I'm honestly not sure why. Overall, I have not found much that indicates that Anglo-Saxon glass designs were ritually or spiritually significant in any way. Many cultures, both earlier and later than the Anglo-Saxons created "evil eye beads" as protective amulets. However, no archeologists that I have read have identified an Anglo-Saxon bead with such a design. The closest I have come to a symbolic design on a bead is an Annular Twist pendant bead with a cross design on it, and it is the only cross design I have seen on an Anglo-Saxon glass bead.

While Anglo-Saxon glass beads did not incorporate Migration period stylistic preference for symbolic animal and human designs, glass beads can be seen to adhere to other aspects of Anglo-Saxon style. Anglo-Saxon artistic style was generally characterized by "bright and shining decoration" (Oxford Art Online, "Anglo-Saxon Art). Sculptures and walls were often painted bright colors (although little evidence of this remained today) and this preference for bright and contrasting colors and decoration is refereed to as polychromy by many books on Anglo-Saxon and Migration period art. In general surface decoration on objects was important to the Anglo-Saxons: "for them, it was the undecorated that was exceptional (Dodwell 38). The  "visual aesthetic of early Anglo-Saxon jewelry" was one of "dense ornament and busy surfaces which play on contrasts of glitter and plainness" (Webster, 8). While simple monochrome beads made up a large number of beads found at excavation sites (this is likely because they are much easier to produce), decorated Anglo-Saxon beads that are found have bright colors and surfaces filled with design; often several overlapping basic design elements are present (dots with waves, lines with waves, or two overlapping waves with dots, etc). Higher status graves also generally have more complexly decorated beads that lower status graves, showing that these decorated beads were highly valued (Hirst and Clark).

A wide variety of glass colors are evident in Anglo-Saxon glass; really all the basic colors of the rainbow are represented, along with white, brown and black. Archeologists have shown how metals were used to color glass since ancient time, and Anglo-Saxon bead artists also likely knew how to alter the colors of the glass that was imported to the island from other areas  by adding recycled glass of other colors to a crucible of glass before making their beads (Henderson). Nothing I have seen indicates that certain colors were harder to acquire than others. However, some colors were prefered for aesthetic reasons. The word polychromy also refers more specifically to a Migration period preference for red (glass or garnet) and gold ornamentation. Decoration with garnet and gold (the later of which became much more easily available for a time during this period) became very popular in the Merovingian kingdom and by extension in Anglo-Saxon society (Oxford Art Online, "Anglo Saxon Art). Merovingian bead design had a clear color preference for red and gold, and many beads  with these colors are found in Anglo-Saxon graves as imports. 

The Anglo-Saxons also were interested by "variable brightens;" they did not have our modern obsession with color itself (Dodwell, 33-4). The opposition of light and dark is actually a regular theme in Anglo-Saxon poetry (Webster 25). In the physical arts, this contrast is found in the gold and red polychrome style mentioned above  (Websiter 25). This preference for variable brightness and a general lack of concern about the colors themselves might explain the red, yellow, and green "traffic light beads," a bead design that was created by Anglo-Saxons (and not imported from the continent). To modern eyes, this color combination is somewhat garish, but the colors do contrast very well with each other on beads. This red, green and yellow color combination can also be found in some pages of the Lindsfarne gospels.

During 7-8th centuries bead in Anglo-Saxon England became less associated with the Germanic continent. The designs became more simple and more monochrome. With the spread of Christianity, glass stopped being burred in graves, and our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon glass beads decreases as a result.


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While it is possible to identify and trace the origin of cultures artistic style, Dr. Dorothy Hoogland Verkerk, a professor of Art History, notes that this distinction is a very modern one “There is a constant back and forth exchange of ornament, pattern and design in all medieval art. So it is less important to trace the origin of a design — who did it first — than it is to appreciate the borrowings and choices made by artists and patrons.” 

Source: http://etc.ancient.eu/2014/10/30/irelands-exquisite-insular-art/

 

Recreated Portway Andover Necklace

A photograph of the finished necklace on display at Mudthaw!

 

Link to Photo of Historic Necklace

Extra Beads from Portway Andover Necklace

Below are a bunch of beads that I made for my Portway Andover Necklace project that did not make it into the final necklace for one reason or another. What I want to do for this blog post is talk a bit about some of these beads, and why I did not include them in my final project, in the hope that it will offer a bit of insight into my thinking and my process for recreating this historic necklace.

                      

All of the beads pictured are perfectly good beads. I did not make a major error in technique on any of these beads. In fact, I've realized that it is much rarer for me to actually "mess up" on a bead with a design that I am familiar than it was a year or two ago. The reason I did not include these beads in my necklace was because they were  not "exactly" what I wanted for this project. Because I have a higher level of technical skill than I did when completing my earlier necklace recreations ( and because all of the techniques and beads in this necklace were already familiar to me from past projects) I wanted to try to do something a little different to challenge myself with this project. When making this necklace I wanted to try to come "as close as I could"  to reproducing the beads based on the information found in the archeological report (size measurements, photographs, and drawings of each bead). For some beads I was able to come closer than others before I reach the point where I felt that to try any more would make me frustrated (its important to keep this fun!). 

I enjoyed this project because it let me challenge myself in different ways. It helped me learn to look at bit more closely at historic beads, and it let me me work to use my technical skills to try to make the glass do more exactly what I wanted it to do. I also liked the idea of trying to recreate the beads more accurately, because I think that subtle things, such as the thickness of a stringer design, and the placement of design elements closer or farther from each other, effects the overall feel of the bead. Hopefully my beads feel like a closer reproduction on this necklace than they have before.

A sampling of some of my thoughts and considerations as I recreated some of the beads for this project are below. If I were starting this necklace now, I would likely try blogging about each type of bead separately.

-When making the yellow and dark blue melon beads, I counted the number or ribs on the bead. I was able to do this for 2 of the 3 melon beads in this necklace because a top down view was given of the historic bead which enabled me to count the number of ribs. I then tried to make my bead not only the same size, but with the same number of ribs as the historic bead.

-When making the yellow melon bead, I was not happy with the transparent yellow glass rod I ordered. It was too light in color. So I mixed a very little bit of opaque yellow into the transparent yellow glass. This made the color darker, but still created a glass bead that was mostly transparent.


-When making the black and white wavy beads I noticed that some of the waves were thicker than others, so I tried playing with stringers of different thickness to see if I could get my beads to look closer to the historic beads. I also tried playing with how close or far away each wave was to the other waves. To the left are some of the beads I did not end up using, but you can use this picture to see how the thickness of the line varies between the beads, and how the space between the waves on the beads varies. This variation is particularly strong  when you compare the left most bead and the third bead from the left.

-When making the raked red and yellow and green and yellow beads I tried to count or infer the number of raked lines that were on the historic bead, and make my beads with a similar number of raked lines. I also tried to modify the thickness of my stringer and my placement of the stringer so I could place the same number of wraps around the bead as in the historic examples.

-When replicating the amber beads using amber colored glass I tried to make my beads the same size as the historic beads. Most of the beads were fairly uniform, so this was easy. However a few beads were much more irregular in their shape. At first I made these "irregular" bead much more "regular"  in shape. However, after talking with Clare/Isabel about the project, she made me realize that I really knew that I should try to reproduce them more accurately, even if it meant creating beads that were obviously uneven.

-Perhaps my most interesting revelation came when I was working on making the green and yellow zig-zag beads pictured to the right. I noticed that the archeological report described these beads have having a "wave design." However, after making a bead with a wave design (left most bead) I'm not sure that was the best or most accurate term to use. Zig-Zag seems to me to be a better and more accurate design term to use, so I modified my technique accordingly

Going further, when looking at the images of this type bead in the archeological report (image right), I noticed that the zig-zag design was not very crisp. There was a lot of glass contained in the tips of the zig-zag. After trying several times, I could not replicate this look very well. I could sort of get there, but it felt very awkward when trying. Having seen a period reconstruction of a bead with a similar design on You Tube, I think that part of the issue is  the modern torch and methods I am using. Thinking about this now, I might be able to try to more accurately recreate the construction method seen in the video if I use a softened ball of glass on the end of a rod to make my design instead of a modern thin piece of glass called a "stringer," and if I keep the flame very low. I will also be interested to try this design when I build my own period fire source!!!

***

Because these extra beads are perfectly good, many of the beads pictured above have already gone on to be used in other ways. They will not be wasted!! For example, I gave a small bag with some of these beads in it to be used in a gift basket. I also carry a small box of practice beads around with me when I do bead making demos, and sometimes I give a few of those beads away to people who stop by.

The purpose of grave goods and the person behind grave 44.

The archeological report I'm using as my source gives information on the person burred
in each grave. It turns out that the person in grave 44 was a juvenile, a teenage girl between the ages of 12-14.

Photo of Grave 44

However, if you examine the necklace that I recreated, it seems to be a pretty big necklace for such a young girl. I have a slight frame, and when I put it on it seems much heavier than I would be comfortable wearing.

My point in saying this is that it seems a bit odd for a young girl to be wearing a necklace that big. This leads me to question what the grave goods placed in a burial really indicate. Were they actual possessions of the deceased, or were they offerings from loved ones? Did the necklace belong to the young girl, or was the necklace owned by someone else and gifted to the girl at her burial? And, if the necklace was not her necklace, why was this very large elaborate necklace given to her. What about her was so special? Was it her age (just on the cusp of adulthood--the idea of so much promise/potential wasted)? Or was it her status (was she the daughter of someone of significance)?

Clearly some research is needed. I will need to go back and read more of the analysis in the archeological report to learn more about the person behind grave 44, but, it also might help to do more research on Anglo-Saxon burial practice. What do academics and archeologists think the grave goods represented?

I have found a few sources I can mine for information on this topic. I looked at these sources earlier for information about beads, but I think I need to go back to them to learn more about Anglo-Saxon society and burial customs. This will help me to better understand the meaning and significance behind the beads found in this grave.
--The Spindle and the Spear: a critical inquiry into the construction and meaning of gender in the early Anglo-Saxon burial rite (book)

--Negotiating gender, family and status in Anglo-Saxon burial practices, c. 600-950 (article)
--The use of grave goods in Conversion Period England (book)

I also found a few other sources just now which could shed light on this issue
--From the Cradle to the Grave: age organization and the early anglo-saxon burial rite : According to the abstract this article discusses the idea that "real function of this system was to signal the position of members of the primary descent group within the households that made up the settlements of the early English."
--Grave Goods in Early Medieval Burials: messages and meanings : suggests numerous other motives and meanings behind grave goods, including "gift giving"

I have a lot of reading to do!

Bead Perforations

One of the reasons I like using archeological reports as sources is because they provide much more information about the beads than a simple image from a museum does. In the case of the image below, we can see the size of the perforation for some of the beads. This picture is also at a 1 to 1 scale, which allows us to measure the size of the bead and the bead perforations accurately. As you can see, the size of the perforation varies, and this variation is what I want to talk about. Why are the perforation sizes so different on the same necklace. 

Now, the answer to this question could easily be because the beads were made by different workers who had different size mandrels, so, I suppose the real question is: are there any reasons why an artisan would prefer one size over the other.

The only real commentary I've seen in my research so far giving a reason behind the size of bead perforations was given in relation to transparent beads. I'd have to go back to find the source, but I think it may have been Birte Brugmann's book which mentioned this idea. I should go back to her book when I get home. But, the basic idea she talked about is this:

-the thinner the layer of transparent glass, the lighter the color of the bead. 

-building up a thick layer of transparent glass will result in a bead that has a comparatively darker color. 

-as a result, one way to keep a lighter color in a larger sized transparent bead would be to make that large bead with a large hole.

 There are only three monochrome transparent glass beads in this necklace (three melon shaped beads). The two beads whose hole sizes are shown do not seem to have an unusually large perforation sizes (between 2-3mm), so I'm not sure that was a considering factor here. Though with small number of monochrome transparent beads here, it is hard to say. I might have to look at larger sample sizes. The mandrel sizes on the transparent beads with decoration also seem to vary pretty widely (1-6 mm). This brings me to my next point.

Another very logical reason for using a mandrel with a larger size is that making beads with a larger hole would also mean that the artisan could make a larger bead using less glass. This idea would seem to make a lot of sense, especially as raw glass was a valuable resource in England, since it was most likely imported from abroad. It would make sense then to suspect that larger bead would regularly have larger perforations. But, in fact, this doesn't seem to be the case with regards to this necklace. While a few larger beads have large perforations (#34 for example) other large beads have small perforations. Bead number #23 for example, which is the largest glass bead on this necklace has a rather small perforation of 3mm or so.

So, in conclusion, while there might be some very good reasons for artisans to prefer larger mandrels over smaller ones, the size of the mandrels and the beads they produce seem rather random, a if most of the time mandrel size was not a serious consideration. 

When I am making my recreations, I will try to follow the size of the perforation listed for an historic bead, just to keep my recreation as accurately as possible. When I don't know the size of the perforation, I generally use larger mandrels for larger beads, so as not to use up as much glass, and so that it will take me less time to build up a larger bead. 

However, I do find the larger mandrels (4+mm) a bit heavy and unwieldy, and so I tend to use them only for the largest beads.  Did period artisans feel the same, not liking to use larger mandrels because they were less comfortable to use. Its hard to know, because so few tools survive. The one photo of a period mandrel (or what is thought to be one) that I have seen comes from the Ribe excavation (Scandinavia). It is 30 cm's long (almost 12 inches), but the tip where the bead would go is much smaller. The sizing on the image in the article makes it seem as if the tip would be about 3-4mm, while the rest of the mandrel would be twice that width, making it heavier, but perhaps more sturdy than if the entire mandrel were narrow. 

Overall, this mandrel seems as if it would be a heavier mandrel than the ones I like to use most.  But it is also likely that they were used differently, making their weight less of a factor for the comfort of the period bead maker. When I make beads I hold the mandrel in the air and spin it. But, perhaps period artisans were able to rest the mandrel on the side of a fire/kiln. I have read articles and watched videos where people do this when trying to recreate historic bead making methods.

Overall, with this blog entry, it feels like I've thought about this issue a bit and not come to any definite conclusions. That is slightly annoying, but, i'm also ok with it, because in a few of the articles I'm reading on experimental archeology, the authors also speak in terms of possibilities and conjecture, because it is almost impossible to know some things for sure: "however the question does not deal with "right" or wrong because we will never be able to verity or refute our theories" (Tine Gam). Basically, we can only do our best based on the archeological remains available to us.

Portway Andover Necklace

Excavations at Portway, Andover, an Anglo-Saxon Cemetery, were carried out from 1973-1975.

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.

ASO Article- The Social Meaning of Anglo-Saxon Glass Beads

I submitted an article to the East Kingdom A&S Newsletter.  The information in the article came from research included in the documentation for several of the A&S entries  have entered into competitions thus far. The idea to explore the social meaning of Anglo-Saxon glass beads came from a comment left at one of my A&S displays encouraging me to include a bit of this type of information in my documentation.

http://eastkingdomgazette.org/2014/09/01/newest-issue-of-ars-scientia-orientalis-available/

Recreation of Birte Brumann's Bead Typology

One of my long term projects has been to replicate each bead from Birte Brugmann's book, Glass Beads from Early Anglo-Saxon Graves, and in the process try to come to understand her study and the typology she created. I also wanted to learn more also how bead styles evolved over time during the Anglo-Saxon period. In the end, I was able to replicate all but one bead from her typology to my satisfaction. My summarization of her chronology in the documentation below is very much simplified from her book (her book can be very complex and detailed at times!!) but, it helped me to achieve my goal of realizing some general trends. The documentation includes close up pictures of all of the beads I made as part of this project.

Link to Documentation


Below is a chart showing most of the Anglo-Saxon beads that Brugmann identified in her typology. This chart orders the beads by decoration type and by time period. The chart itself comes from Brugmann's book. I have attached my recreated beads over the pictures of extant beads she used.

Brugmann's Original Chart

Recreation of a Bead String from Buckland Anglo-Saxon Cemetary

The main source used for this project is an archeological report published in 1987.  Evinson,Vera I.. Dover: The Buckland Anglo-Saxon Cemetery. London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. 1987.

Documentation 
added 12/13

Mucking Excavation Bead Typology

Recreating the bead typology from the Mucking cemetery excavations was a change to make many different beads,  many of them new bead types which I have not created before.

Link to Documentation

Reticella Beads

Purpose

To recreate, as accurately as possible, a style of early medieval bead known as Reticella beads. In working to recreate this bead, my hope was also to improve my ability to create and work with twisted glass rods, as the use of these glass rods is the major skill required to make Reticella beads. 

These beads were found in several societies. The color combination in the top row of beads were from Frankish/Merovingian people and they were also imported into Anglo-Saxon England from the continent. The color combination from the bottom row of beads is from Scandinavia and Ireland. T

Documentation

Anglo-Saxon Woman's Necklace

Purpose:

To recreate an Anglo-Saxon Woman’s necklace found in a grave at a cemetery in Castledyke South, Barton-on-Humber. The primary source evidence for this project is a book which details the archaeological findings at the site. This was the first time I used an archeological report as a source.

Primary Source:

Drinkall, G. and M. Foreman. The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Castledyke South, Barton-on-Humber. Sheffield Academic Press. 1998.

Full Documentation


Note: inspiration for this project came from the following source article by Adelicia of Cumbria (Atlantia)