Article: Viking Age Glass

Who wore glass beads:
Glass beads seem to have been worn by all early Viking Age women who could afford the luxury; many women's graves of the period have upwards three hundred beads. Back into the Roman Iron age Demark two fibulae broaches were found lower down on the breast of women in several burials, these correspond with where tortoise shell broaches were later to be found in Viking Age graves. This lower set of fibulae broaches were sometimes attached to each other by a decorative string of beads. (Hald, 1980) This style of wear seems to have lasted at least a thousand years (Hald, 1980)

Glass beads found in men's graves tend to be found in far smaller quantities: the most beads ever found in a male's grave in Britain are three, with only few male graves having any beads. (Levick,1992)

How glass was produced:

One of the most complete pictures we have of pre tenth century bead production in Britain was found in York.
Excavations at York have turned up a glass- making furnace that appears to have last been fired in about 860. (Hall, 1984)
The furnace was found with a cache of about thirty glass fragments. These fragments seem to have been carefully gathered up to be re melted: the recycled glass was known as cullet. Of the glass fragments found some were unmistakably of Roman origin, gathered to be turned into cullet. Other fragments were long and drawn, typical of waste glass from the production of glass products. (Hall, 1984) Similar caches have been found in Ribe Denmark. (Ward)

There is evidence of new glass being created as well. Pottery found in the vicinity show patches and dribbles on the rims and outsides that consisted both of glass and of sand, a raw material in the making of glass. One of the more complete pieces of pottery found has a centimeter thick deposit of glass covering it's base. It has been suggested that this piece of pottery actually dates back to Roman times and is believed to have been a funeral urn, salvaged because of it superior quality, making it ideal to be reused as a crucible for rendering and re-melting glass. (Hall, 1984)

How glass was worked:
The glass would be melted in a crucible then gathered on the end of a metal “punt” rod, the glass would fuse to the end of the punt in essence giving the glass worker a handle to hold the molten glass with. (Ward)
The molten glass could then be wound onto a mandrel, which is covered in a thin slip of clay or a salt mixture, which allows the cooled bead to be easily removed form the metal mandrel. (Ward)

Decorative features could then be added to the hot bead by applying other colours of glass in dots, twists, and other decorative ways. Metals were also added to create “foil” beads. (Burgmann, 2004)
In the cache of glass fragments found in York several of the fragments appear to have quite possibly been used in the making of glass beads. One end of each of these fragments is quite thick and appears to have been bluntly broken off; the other end is tapered out by being pulled while molten. These pieces of glass could be easily interpreted as being the left over gather broken off the punt. (Hall, 1984)

Bibliography:

Inga Hägg, Viking Women’s Dress at Birka: A Reconstruction by Archaeological Methods. - Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe (Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1983)

Margrethe Hald, Ancient Danish Textiles From Bogs and Burials (National Museum of Denmark, 1980)

Richard Hall, The Viking Dig (The Bodley Head Ltd, 1984)

Ben Levick Glass & Amber Regia Anglorum, 1992
http://www.regia.org/life/braids.htm

Bibliography:

Inga Hägg, Viking Women’s Dress at Birka: A Reconstruction by Archaeological Methods. - Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe (Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1983)

Margrethe Hald, Ancient Danish Textiles From Bogs and Burials (National Museum of Denmark, 1980)

Richard Hall, The Viking Dig (The Bodley Head Ltd, 1984)

Ben Levick Glass & Amber Regia Anglorum, 1992 http://www.regia.org/life/braids.htm

Ben Levick Glass & Amber Regia Anglorum, 1992
http://www.regia.org/life/braids.htm