Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Page 11

Elín Hreiðarsdóttir
MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN BEADS
FROM ICELAND
This paper examines the corpus of beads found in Iceland from the medieval and
early modem periods, c. 1100-1900. It classifies them according to material and
then within that, variously according to established methods where available. The
majority of beads occur in either glass, amber, jet or stone, and almost all the
beads have been imported. The paper reviews the specific bead types and provides
background to their production, distribution and chronology according to the cur-
rent state of knowledge. In addition, it also examines the types of sites on which
they occur in Iceland, most of which are connected to the church, indicating either
a status and/or religious significance. Any religious significance attached to the
beads, specifically through their use in rosaries, raises questions about continuity
of catholic practices in contexts where they occur after the Reformation.
Elín Hreiðarsdóttir, Fornleifastofnun Islands, 101 Reykjavík Email: elin@instarch.is
Keywords: beads, medieval, post medieval, classification, Reformation
Introduction
Beads are a common small find on arc-
haeological sites of most periods in Ice-
land. Despite this fact they have received
relatively little attention and beads are
often regarded as simply items of person-
al decoration that do not yield much
information about the past except about
our predecessors sense of adornment.
However, given a closer look these small,
humble objects can provide much more
information, for example on craft, trade,
economy and even religious beliefs as
well as having great potential for dating.
This paper will look at beads found in
Iceland dating from end of the 1 lth cen-
tury to the end of 19th century.1 As this is
the first publication of its kind, the focus
will be on a broad categorization based
on material and type, manufacturing tech-
niques and the likely origin of the beads.
Christianity was adopted in Ice-
land around 1000 AD but it is unlikely
there was a sharp change in religious or
cultural practices. There is therefore little
reason to think that bead usage changed
drastically at that time. On the contrary,
bead finds seem to indicate that Viking
Age type beads were quite popular in the
first half of the 1 lth century and that they
continued to be used longer, although
towards the turn of the 1 lth century beads
1 During the original research on which this paper is based, time and conditions did not always allow for a detailed examina-
tion and thus those beads that were not looked at microscopically ought to be examined further and in fact a more detailed
analysis of some of the beads could add considerably more information.
Archaeologia Islandica 6 (2007) 9-31