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VIII.—Faience Beads of the British Bronze Age1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

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Extract

Of the many objects of the Bronze Age which have defied decay in these Islands, few can rank in interest and importance with a number of small coloured beads which have been found associated with barrow burials and in other contexts. So well known are they, that it seems almost needless to add that their importance lies in the possibility of using them as datum points in the Absolute Chronology of this period. The question of their origin is thus one of extreme importance and one which we propose here to examine.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1936

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References

page 203 note 2 British Museum Add. MS., 33690, f. 279; see also S. II in List.

page 203 note 3 Proc. Soc. Antiquaries, XXII (19071908), 123.Google Scholar

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page 203 note 5 Ibid., 19.

page 204 note 1 J.R.A.I., XXXV (1905), 256.Google Scholar

page 204 note 2 Les questions de chronologie et d'ethnographie ibériques, 1913, i, 121.Google Scholar

page 204 note 3 Op. cit. and Palace of Minos, i, 490.

page 204 note 4 Primitive Man, English ed., 1870, 261.Google Scholar

page 204 note 5 P.S.A. Scot., XL (19051906), 396.Google Scholar

page 204 note 6 Archaeology of Wiltshire, 1933, 106.Google Scholar

page 204 note 7 Archaeologia, xlvi, 79.

page 204 note 8 Manuel, 1910, II, 371.Google Scholar

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page 206 note 1 P.S.A. Scot., XL (19051906), 397–8.Google Scholar

page 207 note 1 P.S.A. Scot., XL (19051906), 399.Google Scholar

page 207 note 2 Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, 2nd ed., 1934, 101.Google Scholar

page 208 note 1 For further remarks on faience see H. C. Beck, Qau and Badari, ii, 22.

page 210 note 1 Memoirs of the Geol. Survey, XVI, ‘Refractory Materials’, 1920Google Scholar.

page 211 note 1 Wilts. Arch. Mag., XLIII (1924), 185, 330.Google Scholar

page 211 note 2 Ibid., 392.

page 211 note 3 Excavations, i, 126, pl. XLIV, 18.

page 211 note 4 Crawford, O. G. S., Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, 1925, 62.Google Scholar

page 211 note 5 The following references are not intended to be exhaustive: Ancient Wilts., i, 236, pl. XXXIII, and Devizes Museum Cat., i, 200; Inventorium Sepulchrale, 1861, pl. v; Mortimer, Forty Years' Researches, figs. 783, 851, 865, 884, 888; Wilts. Arch. Mag., xxviii, 104, and Devizes Museum Cat., ii, 119, pl. LVI; Lethbridge, T. C., Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries in Cambridgeshire, 1931, figs. 8, 9, 11.Google Scholar

page 212 note 1 P.S.A. Scot., LV (19201921), 29Google Scholar; Childe, V. Gordon, Prehistory of Scotland, 1935, 149.Google Scholar

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page 212 note 3 Woodhenge, 1929, 48, 76.Google Scholar

page 212 note 4 P.S.A. Scot., XL (19051906), 403.Google Scholar

page 212 note 5 Altertümer unserer heidnischen Vorzeit, 1911, V, 67–8, taf. 14.Google Scholar

page 212 note 6 Ancient Wilts., i, 68; Devizes Museum Cal., i, no. 224.

page 212 note 7 Ashmolean Museum.

page 212 note 8 Archaeologia, xliii, 440, fig. 141.

page 212 note 9 Information from Mr. J. P. Heathcote.

page 212 note 10 Journ. Galway Arch. Soc, XVI (1935), 130.Google Scholar

page 213 note 1 Ancient Wilts., i, 103, pl. XII.

page 213 note 2 Abercromby, B.A.P., ii, 39, figs. 374, 375. The beads are in the Durden Collection, British Museum.

page 213 note 3 B/292.

page 213 note 4 B/293. See also Armstrong, E. C. R., Catalogue of Irish Gold Ornaments (1920), 34.Google Scholar

page 213 note 5 Forty Years' Researches, 218, fig. 559.

page 214 note 1 Devises Museum Cat., i, 67.

page 214 note 2 Ibid., 146.

page 214 note 3 Archaeologia, xliii, 516, fig. 210 b.

page 214 note 4 Proc. Bristol Univ. Spel. Soc., ii, 139, 141; iv, 75, 78, 79, 88, 92, 93.

page 216 note 1 Note, however, the two little ‘links of beads’ of some mineral substance of bluish colour found in a food vessel at Lug na curran, Queen's County (Abercromby, B.A.P., 1912, i, 118, 123). This vessel probably belongs to the end of its series and may be a late survival in Ireland.

page 218 note 1 The Deverel-Rimbury or Urnfield culture is characterized by bucket, barrel, and globular urns which reached the southern counties from the continent about 700 B.C. For a full discussion of this Late Bronze Age immigration see Hawkes, C. F. C., Antiq. Journ., XIII (1933), 412.Google Scholar

page 218 note 2 Prehistory of Scotland, 1935, 131.Google Scholar

page 218 note 3 Arch. Camb., 7 S, VIII (1928), 145Google Scholar; Wilts. Arch. Mag., XLV (1931), 432.Google Scholar

page 218 note 4 Antiq. Journ., V (1925), 51Google Scholar

page 220 note 1 Miss Chitty tells us that these suggest the Native-plus-Atlantic tradition rather than that of the ‘sword-bearers’.

page 220 note 2 See above, footnote 1, p. 218.

page 221 note 1 Miss L. F. Chitty, J. Galway Arch. Soc., XVI (1935), 132, note 25: ‘in recording Portuguese finds it seems apposite to mention that 5 small beads, either of weathered callais or of paste, are scored round the girth into 2, 3, or 4 segments … 4 are from dolmens of Alemtejo (M.E.P., Belem) and one from Cascaes grotto (Geol. Mus., Lisbon)…. True segmented beads of Egyptian type are unrepresented in Portugal, but a bright green bead (M.E.P., no. 11683) from the Castello de Pragança, a site occupied from the Eneolithic till after the Late Bronze Age, is of biconical [barrel] form in 6 segments resembling 2 from Boscregan, Cornwall’.

page 221 note 2 Lucas, A., Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, 1934, 209.Google Scholar

page 221 note 3 Spiral bead in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology; short cylinder bead B/1119.

page 221 note 4 Giffen, A. E. van, Die Bauart der Einzelgräber, 1930, 120–2.Google Scholar

page 224 note 1 Qau and Badart, ii, pl. CII, 80, 12.

page 224 note 2 A specimen from this site is in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, no. 24–908.

page 225 note 1 See also Murray, A. S., Excavations in Cyprus, 1900Google Scholar, pl. IX, fig. 305, and Gjerstad, E., Studies on Prehistoric Cyprus, 1926, 250.Google Scholar

page 225 note 2 Palace of Minos, i, 490.

page 225 note 3 Marinatos, Excavations, 1934.Google Scholar

page 226 note 1 Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. ‘They were found in 30 ft. deposits. The natives were loth to give them to us as they said they were “Tsofon aiki” or “Aiki(n) tsofo”—“old works” or “works of old men” (Hausa)’—information sent to Professor C. G. Seligman by the collector, G. Wilkinson.

page 229 note 1 Found with bone implements in Talaiaot no. 2, Poblado dels Antigors, Talaia Joana, La Salinas de Santani (Barcelona Museum). Information from Miss Chitty.

page 229 note 2 Archaeologia, lxvii, pl. xvi, 3; pl. XVI, 2; also M. Murray, A., Corpus of Bronze Age Pottery of Malta, 1934, 4, pls. VII, XLI, 6, 7, and 8.Google Scholar

page 229 note 3 Recueil des Notices et Mémoires de la Société Archéologique du Département de Constantine, 4 S, VIII (1906), 69.Google Scholar

page 229 note 4 Childe, , Essays in Aegean Archaeology, 1927, 2. In a grave at Almas in the Bürzenland a segmented bead of greenish-blue faience, associated with spectacle spirals of copper (?), was recently unearthed. In the Kronstadt-Brasov Museum.Google Scholar

page 232 note 1 Orchard, W. C., Beads and Beadwork of the American Indians, 1929, figs. 28 a, 77.Google Scholar

page 232 note 2 There is a segmented bead in the Devizes Museum placed with, but not attached to, the card of beads presented by Sir Flinders Petrie for comparison with the Wiltshire beads. There is no evidence where this bead comes from, but as it is lying loose very close to a number of unidentified Wiltshire beads from Colt Hoare's excavations, we think there is little doubt that this bead has become misplaced and comes from an English source.