A&S Display Documentation:
The Recreation and Study Early Medieval Irish Beads
Purpose:
To
recreate the beads of the typography created by Dr. Margaret (Mags) Mannion of
both the early Medieval (i.e., 5th to 12th centuries)
Irish and imported beads found throughout Ireland. To recreate a necklace, ring
pin and bead topped ring pin found at different archaeological sites. To study
the history and social context of these beads and adornments.
Irish Beads vs. Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian
and European Beads:
Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and European beads have typically been
found in grave sites, as it was the custom to be buried with their finest.
However, the Christian Irish primarily utilized unaccompanied burials. The
Irish beads were typically found in settlement sites (i.e. a site where a group
of people lived for a period of time) or in Royal sites instead of grave sites.
These excavations generally did not yield large assemblages of beads. In fact,
some beads were originally thought to be lost or stray and older excavation
reports typically did not contain much descriptions of the beads found. Without
large assemblages from individual excavation sites, it made researching beads
in Ireland difficult.
Mannion’s
Typography:
While using standardized terminology and
assessing the beads from different excavation sites across Ireland common
features of color, form, and size were found amongst the individual beads. Irish
Archaeologist, Dr. Margaret (Mags) Mannion was able to create a unified
classification system to compare these beads by
creating a combined corpus of 419 beads from excavation sites in
northeastern, central, eastern and
southern Ireland. She utilized similar methodology and protocols as
those used by archaeologists researching beads from other areas such
Anglo-Saxon thereby creating a comparable level of bead study.
Her standardized system classified beads by distinct classes of color and form. The Classification
Table has the Irish beads divided into 2 main categories: plain and decorated
beads. The plain beads are classified by their shapes (e.g., annular, globular,
spherical) and color. The decorated beads are classified by their form (e.g.
shape and size) and decoration. The uniform classification system provides a
database of the beads with information on the locations they were found, the
age of the beads, their production and their social performance. The decorative
motifs on some of the insular beads (i.e. made in Ireland) reflect designs from
early period Ireland such as spirals, horns and eyes that were found in Iron
Age graves.
Dr. Mannion also catalogued imported
Roman,
Frankish, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, German, and Merovingian beads
that were found in excavation sites across Ireland. These beads matched those
found in excavations in their countries of origin. Also, more imported beads were
found on sites where other imported goods such as pottery and glass had been
found. The imported beads indicate that Irish society connected with
Anglo-Saxon England and Continental Europe. Irish bead makers may have
incorporated their styles into their own bead making, and may have reproduced imported
beads given the quantity of certain types of imported beads.
Irish excavation sites:
The beads found at these sites were used for the creation of
Mannion’s Classification Table. The Crannógs were royal
sites, the Ringforts were settlement sites, and the Ecclesiastical locations
were religious sites.
Deer Park Farms ringfort, Co. Antrim
Lagore
Crannóg, Co. Meath
Clonmacnoise
Ecclesiastical, Centre, Co. Offaly
Cahrlehillian
Ecclesiastical Settlement, Co Kerry
Garranes ringfort,
Co. Cork
Two Ring-Forts
at Garryduff, Co. Cork
Ballinderry
Crannóg No. 2, Co. Offaly
Ballydoo Ecclesiastical
Enclosure, Co. Armagh
Social Meaning and Dress:
Where beads were found within
excavation sites provide information on the dating of the beads and on the social
context or significance of the beads. Chemical analysis of beads gives
information on the glass used to make the bead, but not the bead itself.
Instead, radio carbon dating of the materials in the context or location in
which the bead was found indicates the age of the bead. In these excavation
sites radio carbon dating was done on samples of contexts such as charcoal,
burnt material, oak timbers, organic material in the layer, E ware, bedding
material, and floor layers.
Though most beads were not found in
grave sites there were some. A recent excavation at Parknahown 5 Co. Laois, a
settlement and cemetery site, revealed 3 beads in the clavicle of a woman. They
are suspected to have been a necklace, and have been dated to 660-830 AD (i.e.,
O’Neill 2010, 251-260). Another recent excavation at Faughart Lower, Co. Louth
found a group of beads in the neck area in a grave (Buckley and McConway 2010,
49-59). Beads from grave sites are thought to be what people wore more for
special occasions than those they wore in everyday life.
The beads found in royal and
settlement sites such as Lagore Crannóg and Deer Park Farms, respectively, are
thought to show more about everyday life and dress. A grouping of 11 blue and
white beads were found in the bedding in one of the homestead structures at the
Deer Park Farms ring fort in County Antrim and are dated to 660-780 A.D. Though
there was no string present archaeologists surmise that the beads may have been
strung as a necklace based on their proximity to one another. The groups of
beads found in the aforementioned grave sites may also support the thought that
these beads would have been strung and worn as necklaces (i.e., though in
everyday life). The various groupings also indicate that the number and type of
beads strung was varied.
Strings of beads can provide
researchers with important information regarding the wearer of beads as well as
the beads themselves. Analysis of the combinations of beads strung may show the
ratio of insular to imported beads and may show whether beads from different
periods were strung together; were earlier period beads still used along with
“newer” beads? The strings of beads may also give information on the region the
beads were used along with the age, gender and social status of the wearer.
Glass beads were used as decoration on bronze and iron pins and brooches, and both
used functionally to fasten a garment like a brat or cloak and as objects of
status. Beads and pins with beads were found in Royal sites often near
known high-status jewelry which indicated they were valued and worn by people
of high status such as a bronze pin with an annular blue bead found at Lagore
Crannóg. A similar find from Moynagh Lough, Co. Meath has a radiocarbon dating of
7th to 8th century A.D.
Pin heads decorated with glass were
found at several sites (e.g. Deer Park Farms, Movilla Abbey and Drummiller
Rocks, Dromore, Co. Down). They may have been used in
the hair or as part of a headdress. A glass topped pin from Deer Park Farms was
dated
mid-7th century to late-10th century A.D. Beads were also
found at Ecclesiastical Centers and were used for ecclesiastical
ornaments and as decorative embellishments on Shrines.
Blue is a prominent color seen in Irish beads
yet researchers can only presume the meaning or social context. The word “glas”
in old Irish could be used for blue, green and grey. Early Irish literature
from the 8th century (Siewers 2005, 31) discusses the “Colors of
Martyrdom” found in the Camdrai Homily: bánmartre (white martyrdom), dercmartre
(red martyrdom), glasmatre (blue/green/grey martyrdom). One thought is that
these Colors of Martyrdom may have influenced the color choices of bead makers.
Another thought is that the blue
may represent the water and sky of Ireland, green may represent grass and
vegetation, and gray may represent the rocks and cliffs of Ireland.
Making Glass Beads-Modern vs. Period:
In
addition to finding glass beads, excavators also found indications that glass
working (i.e. making the beads) was also done at some of the sites (e.g.,
crucibles, failed beads, glass rods and glass debris). This evidence was found
at site such as Scotch Street and Dunmisk in Co. Armagh (dated to late 6th
to early 9th centuries) and Lagore Crannóg, Garranes, and Ballydoo
(dated to 7th century).
Glass in
early medieval Ireland as well as other countries had the same components as
the types of glass used by bead makers today: silica, soda (a flux to lower the
melting point of the silica) and lime (calcium as a stabilizer to harden the
glass and to keep the ingredients in their cohesive form). Silica comes from
sand or flint (i.e. ground siliceous rocks). The more silica, the softer the
glass. Soda (flux) was made from the ash of burned aquatic plants or potash
which is from the ash of woodland plants. The addition of extra ingredients,
either accidentally or purposefully, changes the quality of the glass, and the addition
of metals create different colors (e.g., cobalt- blues, iron- green).Glass is
now produced chemically and therefore is more easily accessible. Modern glass
manufacturers are also able to create a greater diversity of colors of glass
and more sophisticated types of glass such as Double Helix glass rods.
Heat is
needed to form glass from its raw ingredients. It is then used to re-heat,
shape and manipulate pre-shaped glass rods into glass beads. Glass makers then sold
or traded these glass rods to glass bead makers. Evidence was found in Ireland,
as well as other countries, that the workshops of glass makers and those of the
glass bead makers were in different locations.
There
were different methods of working the glass in period. Glass was melted in a crucible and a metal
rod was placed in the molten glass to pick it up and then wind it onto the
mandrel (i.e., hot trailing). A rod of glass that was heated and then wound
onto the mandrel was also used. This method of winding heated glass onto the
mandrel is what we use today.
Modern
heat sources are torches with fuels, such as the Hot Head Torch and Map Gas
that I use to recreate the beads. I use commercially produced stainless steel
mandrels that are not unlike the iron rod mandrels used in period. Period heat
sources were stone or clay structures fired with wood or charcoal with the
bellows to add extra oxygen to increase the temperature of the flame. Mistress
Elysabeth (Lissa) Underhill, Mistress Brunissende (Bruni) Dragonette, and I
have created experimental versions of more period furnaces as a heat source for
making beads. I have successfully made beads on our latest versions of the
furnace.
My Reproductions:
The collection of beads I have made
are reproductions of Irish and imported beads found in a variety of excavation
sites such as Lagore Crannóg, Deer Park Farms, Clonmacnoise Ecclesiastical
Centre, Garranes Ringfort, and Garryduff 1 Ringfort. Irish beads
are dated from 5th century to 10th century A.D. with the
Mulberry bead as late as the 12th century A.D. The beads are Class
1: Segmented, Class 10: Herringbone decorated beads, Class 12: Mulberry Beads,
Class 15: Globular, Class 16: Annular, Guido Schedule 6viii beads: Melon
beads, Guido Schedule 2v (a) beads, and Koch Type 49/50: Alternating stripes in
spiral formation. As my skills as a bead maker improve and I learn more advance
techniques I will be able to reproduce more beads from Mannion’s typography.
I also reproduced the collection of 11 beads
found in the bedding at the Deer Park Farms settlement site. The bronze pin with an annular blue bead was reproduced
based on a bronze ring pin found at the royal site Lagore Crannóg. I used modern
wire for this first attempt. I intend to learn how to reproduce the ring pin
using the more period technique to create the wrought metal. The glass topped
pins are a much smaller version of what was found at Deer Park Farms and are
made on modern pins. I also intend to reproduce these with metal pins that I
create using the period technique similar to the ring pin.
References:
Cummings,
Keith, A History of Glassforming, University of Pennsylvania Press, Chapters 1-4
Dubin,
Lois Sherr, The History of Beads: from 30,000 B.C. to the Present, Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., New York
Hencken, H. (1950, November). Lagore
Crannog: An Irish Royal Residence of the 7th to 10th Centuries A.D. [Abstract]. Proceeding
of the Royal Irish Academy, 1-151.
Lynn, C., & McDowell, J. A.
(2011). Deer Park Farms: The excavation of a raised rath in the Glenarm Valley, Co. Antrim. Norwich: Stationery Office. Chapters 1, 18, 34 and 35
Mannion, Margaret. (2013). An
Examination of Glass Beads from Early Medieval Ireland. (Doctoral dissertation).
Retrieved from ARAN-Access to Research at NUI Galway. URI: http://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/handle/10379/3724
Mannion, M. (2015). Glass beads
from early medieval Ireland: Classification, dating, social performance. Oxford: Archaeopress
Tettinger,
Corina, Passing the Flame (A Beadmakers Guide to Detail and Design), BonzoBucks
& Books
Publishing, 2002
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