While Iceland is the source of most of my persona development, I found that there are a lot of beads that have been found in multiple locations including Iceland. This means that although this will be my main source of inspiration, I don’t really feel tied to these examples exclusively.
Iceland
900-1000 CE Viking Age beads from the north coast of Iceland
This next inspirational extant set of beads (Pinterest link) is from Iceland, found near the modern municipality of Húnavatnshreppur, in the county A-Húnavatnssýsla along the northern coast. The beads have been dated 900-1000 CE. The catalog number is 1782 / 1880-6-9, and the museum record seems to indicate the overall length is 28cm. There are a few double beads, one triple bead, and the rest are singles. The beads are mostly glass, but there are also jasper beads and one made of agate.
In my spreadsheet I’m referring to this one as Iceland 1782.
Some of the beads are multicoloured opaque glass. There is one clear melon bead, two spherical clear glass beads, a few drum-shaped (squished sphere) opaque green beads, and some saucer-shaped beads (very squished spheres). There are also the aforementioned double and triple beads. The green drum-shaped beads look ‘rougher’ than the smoother glass beads… which makes me wonder if perhaps these could be faience – as they have a similar texture to the faience beads I made.
I went through my stash of dollar-store glass beads… and there were a LOT of spherical clear glass beads. If following the example from this Iceland necklace, I wouldn’t want to include a lot of them though. I think they are much more closely associated with Swedish finds.
National Museum of Iceland Digital Archives
Direct link from the Iceland Museum
Hólaskógur festoon
This festoon appears to have doughnut-shaped beads (like the drum or saucer shaped beads, with a very large hole) made of the same green texture opaque glass (faience?) and possibly jasper beads. The description only indicates that they are glass.
The museum entry says that there are six green glass beads, four orange, two white beads which are still stuck together with thread along with iron and textile remains (so probably an ornament hung here between the two white beads), and one broken black bead.
However…. that isn’t my count. Odd. Maybe it’s a translation error? I see 6 green beads which look a lot like faience, two broken black beads, the two white central beads (I assume they’re white), and five orange beads, which look like they’re made of 5 different materials. Two are fairly solid and opaque, one is opaque but has two shades of orange. One is a light orange and translucent, and one is a dark orange and translucent. Given the other materials in Viking Age beads, I’d wonder if some of these aren’t carnelian & amber… if only the museum didn’t describe them as glass.
This is dated 900-1000. For my spreadsheet, this will be Iceland-Ho.
Traðarholt farm festoon
Direct link from Iceland Museum
This festoon features silver-and-gold lined beads, double and triple beads along with some others.
These are all listed as glass, and are listed as a grave find from 900-1100 from a farm in the area now Árborg, Iceland.
It’s only 10.5cm long, which would barely stretch from one tortoise brooch to the other on me… so maybe this is an incomplete festoon? Perhaps a festoon for a child?
The museum says that they are mostly 6mm in width (I think, the translation isn’t perfect) while the little green one is about 3.2mm long, and 2.5mm in diameter.
A closer look at the Traðarholt festoon
The museum description says that there are 13 beads here, so although it looks like a few double/triple beads, and a bunch of singles, assuming there are 13 individual items, it’s actually (from left to right):
- 1 single tiny green bead (semi translucent maybe?)
- 1 dark brown double bead (Gold foil)
- 1 single grey bead (silver foil)
- 2 light grey (?) double beads – (silver foil) the second of which is partially broken
- 1 single grey bead (silver foil)
- 1 light grey (?) double bead (silver foil)
- 1 dark grey double bead (silver foil)
- 1 yellow opaque double bead
- 1 dark brown single bead (Gold foil)
- 2 dark brown double beads (Gold foil)
- 1 yellow opaque triple bead
The museum also says most of them are clear glass, lined with silver (6 of them) or gold (4 of them). The translation says they are “glazed glass”, though I’m not entirely sure what this means – I suspect it means that there was a glass bead, the foil was applied, and then a second layer of clear glass was “glazed” on top of the foil, but I could be mistaken.
In my spreadsheet, this is Iceland-Tra.
Biskupstungur festoon
Direct link from Iceland Museum
Biskupstungur is a grazing area between two rivers, and this festoon was found at “Brú” which translates to “Bridge” – so I’m guessing these beads were found near one of the bridges.
This 21.5 cm long festoon has many very different beads and is dated 900-1000.
There are 26 individual beads on this festoon, 3 are triple beads and 9 are double beads.
The central bead the museum says “appears to be” crystal stone, and it is 2.2 cm in length. I think the translation suggests it has 8 facets, and is 9.5 mm in diameter on one side, and 8 mm on the other side. It also says it is “well sanded” – which I suspect means that it’s been abraded a lot.
Two beads are “glass composition, both translucent” – one blue with white decoration, 12.5 mm by 15.5 mm.
The other with “ale and white stripes on the outside, forming 4 diagonals and a green dot with white and red striped benches inside each of them”. This one is 9 mm by 12.5 mm.
A third “glass composition” bead is listed as a fragment. It’s opaque, and has blue, green, and red ribbons “and rails”. It’s 21.6 mm by 16 mm.
10 glass beads are listed as semi-clear, and “Aluminum”. There are two sizes, 2 of the larger ones are double beads, and are 8-10mm in diameter and 4 of the larger ones are single beads 8-9mm in diameter. The smaller ones include one bead that is a triple beads, and one double bead each 5mm in diameter. One smaller triple and one double is 4 mm in diameter. I think these are the ones that look dark blue. I’m not sure why they’re listed as “Aluminum” – I think this might be a translation error.
Five of the beads are “glazed glass” which from the previous entry I think means that a layer of glass was laid down, then foil, then a “glaze” of clear glass – as these are all silver or gold. One of these beads is a triple, and the remaining four are double-beads. All are about 5 mm in diameter. One of them is gold foil, while the other four are silver foil.
2 orange beads are next, 20.5 mm by 5.5 mm and 17 mm by 7 mm. There’s also a broken third orange bead, 17.5 mm by 7mm thick.
2 more beads are ‘greatly eroded’ – one green and one white, which they note sparkled, resembling a real pearl. There’s also a single ‘beer coloured’, reddish-brown bead 14 mm by 5mm which they describe having a “mask compound, skin on the outside” which I don’t understand.
The museum also writes that with the 21.5 cm length, the beads are equal to ‘half a neck’, and was worn only in the front. They also wrote that the ‘steinasörvin‘ seems to be worn by only women. Translate makes this “stone arrow” – which… ‘steina‘ is “stones” – so I suspect that they mean that only graves identified as women wore the rock crystal.
I’ll be entering this into my spreadsheet as Iceland-Bi.
Reykjasel Ruins festoon
Direct link from Iceland museum website
I saw this set of beads on display when in Iceland. The museum lists that they were found at “Reykjasel”, which is listed as ruins in the Fljótsdalshreppur area, in eastern Iceland. These beads have been dated to 900-1000.
On the website, they indicate that the display card says that these were a common Nordic female accessory, and while these necklaces are mostly made of glass or amber, they might also be made of stone. It was found along with other artefacts and bones.
The museum site describes the beads as being mostly orange and clear beads, “rather thin and flat”, and “somewhat misaligned or thinner in the other strip due to wear”. They go on to talk about the beads in the middle, suggesting they believe that this was how the necklace was strung by the wearer, which I find really interesting.
The middle beads are the largest, with the one in the very middle 2.5 cm in diameter, and then they get smaller as they get towards the ends of the necklace. The beads at the very end are half the size of the center bead.
The white beads are glass, while the orange beads are either stone or glass.
The middle 5 orange beads are glass, then with 1 stone bead on either side (sort of an orange-brown). Then there are another 3 orange glass beads on either side of that, then 5 white glass beads, then another single bead (an oblong brown melon made of lead on one side, and a white glass on the other), and finally two more white glass beads at either side. (total of 27 beads)
The site also says “at the front, however, is a red stone number and another white, a fraction 2 of another type of electronic number (m) and one lead number; may this have been on the sorcerers.” – Which… is a translation I can’t understand.
However… Another part of the site says that the orange beads are not glass, but instead amber. “34 numbers, 15 of them made of amber, 14 made of silver-colored glass, four made of stone and one made of lead. From the grave of a woman near Reykjasel in the land of Vaðbrekka in Jökuldalur. From the 10th century.”
I can count 26 beads in this photo myself… so… I think there are some translation issues.
Either way, I’ll enter the beads into my spreadsheet as Iceland-Rey.
Mjóidalur farm festoon
The Iceland Road guide says that Mjóidalur, (“Narrow valley”) is a deserted valley off the Bárðardalur valley, where a farm of the same name was abandoned in 1894. It’s in the Mýrasýsla area. This festoon is dated to about 900-1000 CE. I showed this festoon off in a 2014 blog post after my Iceland visit.
The website says that the exhibition text says that this necklace was made of 25 beads of amber and glass, along with two Arabic silver coins from the 10th century. It was found early in the 19th century, in a burial mound. It was found along with two “convex needles and a three-leaf bronze needle” – which I think means that it was found with two turtle brooches and a tri-lobed brooch. These brooches are now in the National Museum in Copenhagen. (Boo to Denmark taking Icelandic artifacts out of Iceland…)
They also have information about the coins – the translation says the “money is from the beating of the co-president Nasr ibn Ahmed from 917-918 and 926-297.”
Direct link from Iceland museum website – the coins are oddly missing from this photo.
While the description from the museum says that some of the beads are amber, I’m not sure which ones they mean. The green and blue ones are glass, the clear one might be crystal or glass, the black bead on the left looks like it’s glass, which makes me think that the large black melon bead and POSSIBLY the yellow bead, might be the amber.
The black bead on the left of centre looks like a solid colour from the museum photo, but on my photo I can also see red and white.
Some of the green beads are doubles, some singles, while all of the other beads are singles. In my photo, the green ones look a lot like the faience I’ve made before, and opaque. However in the museum larger photo, they look more translucent, (though not as transparent as the blue ones beside them) and look more like glass than glass-clay.
I’ll record this on my spreadsheet as Iceland-Mj.
Stay tuned
Dating and placing my Viking Age style bling – beads from Iceland (part 1)
As I mentioned in my Brooches post, this is just one of a VERY long series of posts to help me date and place my Viking Age jewelry, all with the hope of a more historically plausible costume.
In fact, I found so many Icelandic examples, that I’m breaking this location up into two posts.
If you’re finding this post well after the original publication date, you can follow the “Dating & Placing” tag to see more posts from this category.
Dawn's Dress Diary 