Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Síða 15

Medieval and early modern Beads from Iceland
competed with Venice in exports until
late in the 16th century (Kidd 1979:17-18
and Karklins 1974:64). After Venice, two
major centers in Europe also produced
glass beads on a large scale: Amsterdam
from the late 16th to the middle of the 18th
century (aided by immigrant Italian glass-
workers) and Bohemia. The latter region
produced glass beads ífom an early date
but large-scale production began in the
middle of the 16th century. By the latter
half of the 17th century the Bohemian
workshops had commenced large-scale
trade in beads to various countries, first
within Europe but by the second half of
the 18th century well beyond. The Czech
glass bead industry developed rapidly in
the 19th century as new machines were
developed to process molten glass into
a heated mould, producing faceted bead
types which became their specialty. By
the 18th century Venice and Bohemia (and
to the second half of the century Amster-
dam) continued to dominate the interna-
tional trade into the 20th century (Kidd
1979, Dublin 1998 and Sleen 1967).
Despite increased competition,
the Venetian glass industry reached its
peak in the 17th and 18th centuries; a
recorded 20.000 kg of beads were being
produced per week in 22 furnaces in 1764
(Kidd 1979:19; also see Tivellato 2001,
Kidd 1979; Mackenney 1987 and Sciama
2001 for more background to the Venice
bead industry). Even if Venice, Bohemia
(and for a while Amsterdam) were by far
the largest production centres of glass
beads in post-medieval times, other Euro-
pean countries such as England, France,
Austria and Germany did produce some
beads. Many of these produced similar
bead types and up to this point a guide-
line to establish where types of glass bead
from this period were made has not been
put forward. The fact that little compara-
tive material is available makes it difficult
to determine with certainty where many
types of glass beads were manufactured.
Attempts to use chemical composition to
determine the origin of glass beads have
been made but have not proven very suc-
cessful (Karklins 1985:114). Connected
to this is the fact that no overall chronol-
ogy has been established for post-medi-
eval glass beads. Still indications about
the dating and the origin of the beads can
sometimes be gained by reviewing mate-
rial that has been researched in America,
Canada, Africa and elsewhere. A few col-
lections of beads, for example the Levin
Catalogue and A sample book of 19th
century Venetian beads (Spague 1985) are
also helpful to establish time frames, as
well as beads from securely dated archae-
ological contexts from various excava-
tions, for example from the Netherlands
(Karklins 1974).
Classification of glass beads
The principal approach to classifying
glass beads is by the method of manu-
facture. Thereafter, colour, decoration,
shape, size, translucency etc. are consid-
ered. Moreover, the size of the bead also
gives a general indication of its usage:
beads with a diameter less than 6 mm
are often embroidery beads while those
larger than 6 mm are more often pieces of
necklaces or other decoration (Karklins
1985:115). This is of course a simplifica-
tion as larger and smaller beads can have
different functions; nonetheless, accord-
ing to this distinction, about half of the
Icelandic glass beads from later times are
likely to have been from embroideries.
The most basic classification of
glass beads divides them into two major
groups of manufacture: wound beads
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