Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Side 16

Elín Hreiðarsdóttir
and drawn beads (see for example Kidd
1970:48). Still, most glass bead experts
think it is necessary to distinguish the
manufacture techniques further and add
(at the minimum) mould-pressed beads
and often also blown and fired beads as
major methods (for example Sprague
2000:210-213). However the majority
of later beads found in Iceland are either
drawn or wound and thus the heaviest
emphasis will be on these methods. Out
of the Icelandic glass beads just over
twenty beads were unidentifiable, most
often because too little had been pre-
served or because the glass was too badly
damaged by glass disease. The majority
of glass beads could however be classi-
fied according to the types just enumer-
ated and are discussed below.
Drawn glass beads
Drawn glass beads have been called many
different names in the archaeological lit-
erature, often either referring to the tech-
niques used in their production (such as
tube beads, tubular drawn, cane/hollow
cane and cut) or their appearance (usu-
ally for the smallest ones - for example
seed, micro-, pound-, and pony beads)
but today the term “drawn” is preferred.
Drawn beads are usually the most com-
mon on archaeological sites (Sprague
2000:202-203) and make up 43% of all
Icelandic glass beads from later times.
Drawn beads were made by blowing
heated glass into a hollow form and then
drawing out the hot glass in opposite
directions making a long tube or hollow
cane. This cane was then cut into small
segments. The final stage in making sim-
ple, monochrome glass beads was vari-
able. They were sometimes reheated to
get rounded edges or polished in sand
and wood ash (or plaster and graphite),
first in a large pan on fire and later (after
1817) in iron drums in an oven (Karklins
1985:88). This process produces simple-
shaped beads of different angularity and
length and was the closest that glass bead
production of earlier times came to mass
production. Some types of drawn beads
were more complex having two or more
layers; an altered form or decoration on
the surface, for example the famous chev-
ron beads and facetted beads (Sprague
2000:203-205). A big part of the drawn
beads however were of the simple type,
mass produced and often small. They
all had in common that their production
required the use of furnaces and they were
therefore considered a more specialized
production than wound beads (see below).
In Venice there were two separate guilds:
one for the glass blowers (who among
other things made drawn beads - mostly
made by men on the island of Murano)
and the other for makers of wound beads
- made from ready made glass rods by
women in Venice itself, on lamps (Scia-
ma 2001:5 and Tivellato 2001:50-54).
All of the glass production took place on
Murano where the glassblowers produced
both hollow glass tubes which were cut
into small beads and polished, and solid
glass rods that were later used to make
wound beads.
Of the drawn beads from Ice-
land about 85% are small, simple, mono-
chrome beads (see for example SKH-
1512 and Bessastaðirl987:51 figure 3
nr. 1-2). These beads are with only one
exception less than 6 mm in diameter and
mostly of blue tones, especially turquoise.
White beads of this type are also com-
mon and some yellow, black, green ones
have been found, as well as a single red
specimen. It is likely that the vast major-
ity of these beads come from embroidery
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