Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Page 17

Medieval and early modern Beads from Iceland
of some sort. Most of these beads come
from excavations at the episcopal manor
and school at Skálholt but an occasional
bead of this type has been found in other
excavations across Iceland. Where tightly
dated they always come from a 17th—19th
century context, except a single bead
from the monastic site at Skriðuklaustur
that was dated by context to the 16th cen-
tury.
Two drawn beads with surface
decoration have been found in Iceland,
both in Viðey, a monastic settlement and
later official residence. One (V90-995)
is brown with three stripes of white base
and a blue line on top and the other one
(V87-46385) is see-through glass with
fine white stripes. Neither of these beads
come from a tightly dated context. Three
drawn, compound (multilayered) beads
have been found in Iceland. The small-
est one (SKH-1664) comes from Skálholt
and is dated by context from the end of
19th to the first half of the 20th century.
This bead is very similar to the simple,
drawn beads mentioned earlier. What dif-
ferentiates it from the latter is the fact that
it is compound (multilayered), made up
of a white core and a red outer layer. The
other two multilayered beads are larger
and more complex. One is reported from a
midden at the assembly site of Kópavogur
(Kóp.gler. 21) but it could not be located
during the research. From an available
photograph it looks like a chevron bead.
Its main colour is blue but towards the
ends it has brown, white, red and colour-
less chevron lines. The other multilayered
bead was found about 4 km to the west of
the first mentioned one, in the excavation
of the Governor’s residence at Bessas-
taðir (Bessastaðirl987:772 - see figure
3, nr. 3). This is a typical chevron bead
(sometimes also called Rosetta or a Star
bead) with five layers (counted from the
core and out) of colourless, white, red,
white and blue glass. The end has been
ground down so the section of each layer
(except the core) makes a twelve-pointed
star. The surface has also been ground
down causing the body to have the appear-
ance of dark blue and paler blue stripes.
Chevron beads are often considered the
fanciest of all drawn beads. The making
of chevron beads started in Venice around
1500 and a century later in Holland. The
Bessastaðir bead is most likely from the
17th or 18th century.
Wound beads
Wounded beads (sometimes also called
spiral, wire wound or turned) are on the
whole larger than the drawn ones. They
are made from a solid glass cane and each
bead is made individually. About a quar-
ter of all identifiable glass beads from
later times found in Iceland are wound.
Wound beads were made by reheating
glass canes around a metal rod on an open
fire, oil lamp or gas lamp (hence these
beads have sometimes been called lamp-
beads). When the beads cooled down they
were taken off the rod, which was often
covered with chalk, clay or graphite to
prevent the beads getting stuck and either
worked further or finished. The beads
could be worked further for example by
adding decoration with a different col-
our glass thread or adding layers of thin
sections of mosaic rods on top, and then
finally reheated and finished. These types
of wound beads are sometimes called
“fancy” or “polychrome” beads (Sprague
2000:208-210). Wound beads are gener-
ally considered to have been strung, for
example as rosaries but some are very
small and could have been part of embroi-
dery work.
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