BEAD

A Late Iron Age or Roman (c.300 BC - AD 410) blue glass bead with white detail meandering across the external surface in gently recurving irregular loops. This bead is circular in shape with flattened, althoough not parallel to each other, upper and lower edges. It has a D-shaped cross section formed by convex outer edges and straight vertical edges to the perforation through the approximate centre of the bead. The bead has a diameter of 14.6mm, height or thickness of 7.4mm and weighs 1.74g. The perforation through the bead is circular and has a diameter of 6.7mm. The white decoration is set into the rest of the bead, the surface being level with rather than being applied over the blue bead. A few thin cracks can are present over the surface of this artefact.

While handmade beads with trailed decoration were popular in both the Late Iron Age, Roman and Early Medieval periods the translucent bright blue shade is more popular in the Late Iron Age to Roman periods. Similar examples on the database include HAMP-FB9144, SOM-143704, SUR-0EAD67, NARC-CEEB43 and CPAT-824C93. Guido (1978) describes this type as Wave-decorated beads in her publication 'The Glass Beads of the Prehistoric and Roman Periods', classed as Group 5 (A).