Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Page 12

Elín Hreiðarsdóttir
Figure 1. Map of Iceland showing location of sites where Medieval and early Modern beads have
been found.
had become less frequent. The reason
may be connected to a more general
reduction in supply and demand in the
Nordic countries, for it is believed that
bead production in Scandinavia, declined
drastically in the llth century and had
stopped by the second half of the 12th
century or the beginning of the 13th
(Callmer 2003:45). This decline is clearly
reflected in the archaeological material;
as of 2005 over 1000 beads dating to the
9th_l lth centuries had been identified in
Iceland, while from between the 12* and
the 16* century, less than 50 dated exam-
ples are known.2 In this latter period bead
usage in Iceland as well as in Scandinavia
and elsewhere in Europe was not only
drastically reduced compared to both
before and after but also significantly dif-
ferent in character.
Despite this apparent decline,
beads were important in Christianity;
they were used to count prayers and usu-
ally called Patemosters or rosaries. The
oldest reference to this practice is from
the 11* century and it spread in the fol-
lowing centuries. By 14*—15* centuries
bead usage for religious purposes had
become quite popular, although it was
not until the end of the 15* century that
rosaries were granted official approval
by the Vatican (Dansart 2001:138). In
northern Europe however, the Reforma-
tion influenced bead manufacture and
2 Although the greater quantity from Viking age is at least partly due to the fact that most of the beads come from burials, unlike
later times; a fairer comparison might be to beads found on settlements from the Viking period, which amount to 126
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