Rights Holder: Birmingham Museums Trust
CC License:
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Unique ID: WMID-4BAD77
Object type certainty: Certain
Workflow
status: Published
A complete sub-cylindrical decorated polychrome glass bead, with flattened ends (diameter: 9.1mm; thickness: 7.7mm; weight: 0.87g), dating to the Early Medieval period, probably 6th-8th century AD. The dark blue/black bead seems to have been splashed with a range of colours after the initial monochrome bead was made, including yellow, red, grey/blue and off-white. These colours have been applied irregularly and in no distinctive pattern. The hole which is slightly off-centre in the bead (created by a metal rod when the bead was made) is also of irregular shape, with the diameter being larger at one end (3mm) than the other (2mm), which may suggest that the metal rod was of an irregular diameter.
This bead is of Brugmann's 'Mottled Blue' type, which are found in early Anglo-Saxon England and in continental row-grave cemeteries, but also in Ireland and possibly in other places too. Their exact typology, provenance and dating has not therefore been securely established (Brugmann 2004, p. 36, fig. 149.
Similar beads are illustrated in Kevin Leahy's 'Anglo-Saxon Crafts', 2003, pages 108-110 & color plate 20, and were found at Tallington, Lincolnshire. According to Leahy, glass beads are the most common objects found in Early Anglo-Saxon graves, with some burials containing hundreds of them. Evidence for glass bead making has been found at Garranes, Co. Crok (sixth to seventh century) and Ribe, Denmark (eighth century), but the only English sites to produce evidence of glass bead making are at York (Leahy, page 108). Could some of these beads been imports?
Class:
polychrome
Sub class: Mottled Blue
Subsequent action after recording: Returned to finder
Broad period: EARLY MEDIEVAL
Period from: EARLY MEDIEVAL
Period to: EARLY MEDIEVAL
Date from: AD 500
Date to: AD 800
Quantity: 1
Thickness: 7.7 mm
Weight: 0.87 g
Diameter: 9.1 mm
Date(s) of discovery: Monday 6th December 2004
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4 Figure: SO9483
Four figure Latitude: 52.44493003
Four figure longitude: -2.0897017
1:25K map: SO9483
1:10K map: SO98SW
Grid reference source: From finder
Unmasked grid reference accurate to a 100 metre square.
Author | Publication Year | Title | Publication Place | Publisher | Pages | Reference | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Brugmann, B. | 2004 | Glass Beads from Early Anglo-Saxon Graves | Oxbow Books | 36; fig. 149 | |||
Leahy, K. | 2003 | Anglo-Saxon Crafts | Stroud | Tempus | pages 108-110 | color plate 20 |