Issue 77 Autumn 2020

A Find of Split Five-Sided Glass Beads at Ankeveen, the Netherlands

Hans van der Storm

Figure 1. Color varieties of the split beads found near Ankeveen (author’s collection; all images by author unless other-
wise stated).

I
n 1975, thousands of split glass beads were sible to reconstruct any of the approximately 144
found by the late historian Jan Veenman in a fragments in Figure 2 into a more or less complete
meadow near Ankeveen, a small village situ- bead. What is the explanation for this unique bead
ated in the province of North Holland, the Neth- find? Following the observations of the Dutch
erlands. All are furnace wound, cylindrical, with bead researcher van der Sleen, there was a possibil-
five longitudinal marvered facets and large perfo- ity that waste beads were transported there in the
rations. Individual beads are about 25 mm long, 17th-18th centuries with the sludge dredged from
16 mm in diameter, with a perforation of about 3 the canals of Amsterdam (Daams 1991; van der
mm. The beads are mostly shades of dark cobalt Sleen 1973:110). This sludge was used to fertilize
blue, with some a translucent, dichroic light blue, the sandy bottom of the area called Het Gooi (The
and a few opalescent white (Figure 1). A portion Gooi or Gooiland). Ankeveen is in Het Gooi. But
of the bead find was donated to the Goois Mu- this theory cannot explain why, if they were waste
seum in Hilversum. Some of the beads are also in beads, were all of them neatly split in half, clearly
the permanent exhibition, “Archaeology from your on purpose.
back garden.Wijdemeren,” in the Rijksmuseum A more plausible explanation is that the beads
voor Oudheden Leiden, the Netherlands. Another formed decorations in the garden of a baroque
portion of the find (Figure 2) was acquired by the country estate. In the 17th-18th centuries, Het
author and subsequently traced back to Veenman Gooi was a beloved area of the Amsterdam up-
(van der Storm 2017:3). This type of bead (Fig- per class, which built country houses to escape
ure 3) was likely made in either eastern Bavaria, the smelly atmosphere of the canals in the city,
Germany, or southern Bohemia, Czech Republic, especially in the summertime (Daams 1991). The
starting in the late 17th century (Karklins 2019; meadow where the beads were found was such a
Karklins et al. 2016). place; a country house was once situated there.
The most remarkable feature was that all When construction of the building started is not
the beads were split in half lengthwise. Not one known, but in 1714, at the age of 23, Maria Elisa-
unbroken bead was found, and it was not pos- beth de Walé (or Weal) inherited Het Huis te
The Bead Forum

Figure 2. The split beads from the Ankeveen meadow (author’s collection).

Anckeveen (The House of Ankeveen) (Figure 4). The In a garden mosaic, grout would not be neces-
next year she moved there to reign over her palatial sary since the beads can be simply embedded in silver
estate (Cruysheer 2013:16, 2015:52). sand (a fine, white sand used in gardening and mor-
tar), a technique seen in other places. Such gardens
De Walé invited talented painters, sculptors,
with mosaics of pebbles and beads are known to have
landscapers, and other craftsmen to the estate to
embellish the house and garden. The garden, several
hectares in size, was redesigned in the style of that
period and transformed into a pleasure garden with
statues, ponds with fountains, sundials, an orangerie,
and so on. Mosaics of colored pebbles and exotic shells
were fashionable at the time the house and garden
were renovated, so it is plausible that Maria Elisabeth
de Walé installed a bead mosaic in her garden. In sup-
port of this idea, fragments of the mosaic floor of the
fountain at the de Walé estate were found in the form
of pebbles and beads stuck in grout. The same blue
split beads that were found loose in the meadow were
found stuck upright in fragments of grout (Cruysheer
2013:20). Figure 3. Intact examples of five-sided beads, ca. 17th-
19th centuries (author’s collection).
--
 Autumn 2020
existed at other sites in the North of Holland. Some of Daams, J.
these gardens consisted only of beads! So it is plausible 1991 De ‘s-Gravelandse kralen [The s’Graveland
there was such a bead-and-sand mosaic on the estate of Beads]. Tussen Vecht en Eem 9(3):163-167.
Maria Elisabeth de Walé. Karklins, Karlis
De Walé died in 1753, unmarried and without 2019 Furnace-Wound Beadmaking in the Bavarian/
children. In 1755, her heir requested permission to Bohemian Forests and Environs, 15th-19th
demolish the house and it was removed in 1756. The Centuries. The Bead Forum 74:1-3.
property was subsequently sold as farmland. It is there- Karklins, Karlis, Sibylle Jargstorf, Gerhard Zeh, and
fore likely that the split beads were originally part of a Laure Dussubieux
bead mosaic. When the property reverted to farmland 2016 The Fichtelgebirge Bead and Button Industry.
the beads were plowed under, only to be discovered in Beads: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers
a meadow some 200 years later. 28:16-37.
van der Sleen, W.G.N.
REFERENCES CITED
1973 A Handbook on Beads. George Shumway, York,
Cruysheer, Anton T.E. PA.
2013 De tuin van het Huis te Ankeveen [The Garden van der Storm, J.H.
of the House in Ankeveen]. Naerdincklant Spe- 2017 Het Huis te Ankeveen [The House in Ankeveen].
cial, Digital Edition 2013-01:15-21. Privately published, Amsterdam.
2015 Maria Elisabeth de Walé – Een katholieke lusthof
in Ankeveen (1691-1753) [Maria Elisabeth de Hans van der Storm
Walé – A Catholic Pleasure Garden in Ankeveen Independent Researcher
(1691-1753)]. In Van Andriessen tot Van Zutphen, Amsterdam
pp. 52-53. Nabij Producties, Nijkerk. hastorm@icloud.com

Figure 4. Het Huis te Ankeveen (The House in Ankeveen), by Jan de Beijer, 1749 (courtesy of the Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam). --
The Bead Forum
A Faturan Phenolic Resin Bead Sample Card
Rosanna Falabella and Floor Kaspers
During visits in 2017 and 2018 to the archives to name man-made products after the inventor, or the
of the Museum of Glass and Jewelry in Jablonec nad place of manufacture, e.g., Bakelite (Leo Baekeland),
Nisou, Czech Republic, we examined a bead sample Parkesine (Alexander Parkes), and Trolon (Troisdorf,
card entitled “Faturan” (Figure 1). The card especially Germany).
attracted our attention because it may be the only We do not know the exact date of Faturan’s de-
extant phenolic resin bead sample card that positively but, but three years after Bakelite was commercialized,
identifies the specific material used. Similar identifica- a brief mention of the material appears in a French
tions only appear in catalog images of Bakelite beads, journal (Les Temps Nouveaux 1913): AIDONS-NOUS:
e.g., Davidov and Dawes (1988:17). Un camarade demande des renseignements sur un produit
imitant l’ambre et quis’appelerait le Faturan (HELP
US: A comrade asks for information about a product
imitating amber, called Faturan). The 1914 edition of
Didot-Bottin’s Almanac of Commerce, the original “yel-
low pages” of businesses since 1796, has a listing under
Matières Plastiques (Plastic Materials) for a company
that provides “tournage et décolletage, bakélite, faturan
et galalith” (lathe-work and turning from bar stock
of Bakelite, Faturan and Galalith) (Bouillet Frères
1914:2453). The mention of Faturan as an amber
imitation suitable for fabrication of objects on a lathe
indicates that the product is a cast resin, not an indus-
trial molding compound meant for shaping in a press.
The latter material is typically opaque and very dark
reddish brown or black, due to added fillers and high
cure temperatures.
Just before the end of WWI, Taffin (1918:475)
describes Faturan, along with two other German PF
products, Wenjacite and Aswelite, as flame retardant
substitutes for rubber. De Wildemain (1919:258)
wonders if Faturan “could replace” hardened rubber in
telephone and telegraph devices. These early citations
support the premise that German chemists created
competitive products soon after they were aware of
Figure 1. Faturan bead sample card of the W. Klaar the patents and successful first commercialization of
Company (photo: F. Kaspers). Bakelite in Erkner, Germany, in 1910. These materials
Faturan is the trade name for a synthetic plas- existed before the expiration of the 15-year German
tic made from phenol and formaldehyde (PF) and is Bakelite patents (awarded in Germany with a retro-
chemically similar to its better-known competitor, Ba- active date of 1908). We do not know if they were
kelite. Faturan was manufactured in Hamburg by Dr. subject to patent litigation by the U.S.-based Bakelite
Heinrich Traun & Söhne, the inventors, and later by Company, but during the war years (1914-1918) pat-
Herold AG (Ellis 1935:1394). Holdsworth and Faraj ent challenges from Germany’s opposition were prob-
(2015) postulate that the name Faturan is an anagram ably ignored.
of F(riedrich) A(dolf ) Traun, the son of the founder of Clément and Rivière (1924:358) report on
the company. This is an entirely reasonable assumption Hertzog’s results (published in 1921) for the phenol
based on the fashion of the late 1800s and early 1900s content of four PF resins made in either Germany or
-- Austria – Invelith, Resan, Dekorit, and Faturan. Leo
 Autumn 2020
Baekeland himself refers to Faturan as a commercial
“phenol resinoid” product (Baekeland and Bender
1925). A 1935 trade names index of industrial syn-
thetic resins lists Faturan as a PF product available
in sheets, rods, and tubes (Ellis 1935:1394). Faturan
is explicitly described as a product or condensate of
phenol and formaldehyde in the five references cited
above. Despite this evidence, there is some dispute
about the material’s composition, as discussed below.
In the mid-1920s, advertisements in a German
trade magazine for the jewelry industry, Die Perle (The
Bead), offer Faturan specifically for beads (e.g., Figure
2). Another, by Traun & Söhne, states (translation
from German):
Faturan: Synthetic resin product in all colors,
Figure 3. Detail of a faceted bead (photo: R. Falabella).
transparent, opaque or cloudy available, in
blocks, bars or wide tubes. The material in all graphics and handwritten numbers. These additional
colors is electrostatic [reibungselectrisch, i.e., cards show Celluloid or Galalith beads, and are either
“frictionally electric”] just like real amber and dated between 1927 and 1930, or designated “interwar
keeps this property permanently. Graduated col- period” in the museum catalog, or have no date.
ors, particularly suitable for chains [i.e., strings The museum accession entry (BT 3188, dated
of beads] and other jewelry (Die Perle 1926:26). 1996) misidentifies the material as Galalith. In ad-
dition to the clear “Faturan” inscription on the card,
the larger beads show a feature characteristic of old
PF – long sparse cracks formed during slow shrinkage
over time (Figures 3 and 4). We are therefore confident
that the beads are indeed made of Faturan PF resin.
The entry also indicates that the beads are barva-krevel

Figure 2. Advertisement from Jungbauer of Vienna (Die

Perle 1924:38). Faturan is described as “imitation amber,
magnetically attractive.”

The Faturan bead sample card bears the logo of

the Wilhelm Klaar Company, a well-known exporter
of beads based in Gablonz, Bohemia, (now Jablonec
nad Nisou, Czech Republic) (Novy 2008:116-118).
Despite the business setbacks of WWI, the company,
active from 1862 to 1945, became one of Jablonec’s
largest export houses in the interwar period and spe-
cialized in glass buttons and costume jewelry.
The undated sample card is assumed to be from
the interwar period because it is similar to 12 other W. Figure 4. Detail of a round bead (photo: R. Falabella).
Klaar cards from the same archive exhibiting the same --
The Bead Forum
(blood-color). The deep red color, also referred to as One difficulty with El Sofian’s recipe is the use of
“cherry amber,” is due to the chemical instability of a Bakelite product that was not available prior to 1910.
some PF formulations. Patents and literature from the This fact cannot be reconciled with date ranges as early
earliest days of PF resin production report that some as 1860 for some Faturan komboloi at the Komboloi
formulations of amber-colored PFs darken to shades of Museum. There is also a report of another komboloi
red and reddish brown in a matter of weeks (Falabella dated 1821 at the National Historical Museum in
2016:10-12). We believe the beads on this card were Athens (Wikipedia 2020). The images of the Kombo-
originally imitation amber and that they turned red loi Museum holdings show some beads with the large
at some point during the decades before the card was sparse cracks typical of old PF resin, and therefore they
recorded in 1996. could well date to the 1910s. Any beads thought to be
Half the beads on the card have an unusual older than this would need chemical analysis to further
faceted shape. This feature appears to be unique, and characterize them.
possibly useful for identifying Faturan beads. Although Some elements of the oral history correspond
not evident in the photographs, the beads are semi- to historical events. One is the report of the Faturan
translucent, and some have internal swirls of different recipe being lost during WWII (Gromitsari 2014:120),
opacity, usually described as “marbled”. Such features which probably happened if the factory was destroyed
are common in PF imitation amber beads of all colors in the fire-bombing of Hamburg. Another is El So-
found in the African trade (Falabella 2016:9). fian’s knowledge of materials similar to Faturan, whose
The story of Faturan would not be complete names – Ambrasit, Resanit, and Resan – he ascribes
without mentioning an alternative explanation of its to their inventors, but which are actually trade names
composition and origin. In this narrative, “authentic of industrial PFs made in Germany and Austria in the
Faturan” contains natural amber as one of its essential interwar period (Ellis 1935:1384, 1409). Technically
ingredients and the inventor was an Egyptian chem- even the belief that Faturan was invented by a 19th-
ist named Faturan who lived in the 19th or possibly century chemist is accurate – F.A. Traun was born in
the 18th century, well before industrial PFs were 1876 – although he was German rather than Egyptian.
commercialized. Sources for this information include The connection of Faturan to the Middle East is
Wikipedia (2020), and the Komboloi Museum (2020) probably due to the close ties between the Ottoman
in Nafplio, Greece. The founder of the Komboloi Empire and Germany before, during, and after WWI.
Museum visited Egypt, ca. 1972, and documented Faturan in the form of turnery stock was likely sold to
many details of this origin story, as told to him by an Ottoman markets for making beads for prayer strands
Egyptian beadmaker named Hussein Abou el Sofian and komboloi. If Faturan was the first PF product to
(Evangelinos 1998). enter these markets, the name could have become
El Sofian describes a process by which amber fil- synonymous with PF resin in the Middle East in the
ings and powder left over from amber beadmaking are same way that Bakelite has passed into common usage
combined with colophony (rosin from pines), mastic for PF resins in the Western world. Furthermore, since
(a tree resin), and Bakelite, and cured into a solid. Faturan was originally sold as faux amber, it is also
Today, amber powder and shavings are in fact used to possible that other imitation amber materials of vari-
make amber varnish by a process known since the 12th ous compositions came to be called “Faturan” simply
century (Groves 2020; Natural Baltic Amber 2020). to distinguish them from 100% natural amber beads.
Therefore El Sofian could be describing a method for Today, many plastic beads, both cherry-amber
making bead material by combining amber varnish, and amber yellow, are being marketed as Faturan as
natural resins, and a commercial, solubilized PF resin there seems to be an enhanced value attached to this
made by the Bakelite Corporation for coatings. This name (Figure 5). A recent search for Faturan articles
interpretation is pure speculation on the part of the and beads on eBay returned 1220 items, with the most
authors since to the best of our knowledge, no bead expensive bead strand priced at $16,200. Many sellers
identified as Faturan has been analyzed for the pres- use both “Bakelite” and “Faturan” to describe the same
ence of amber or other natural resin components. item, which further supports the idea that both names
are now generic terms for faux amber.
--
 Autumn 2020
able on several occasions; to Marie-José Opper for her
forwarding of references on Faturan and the French
literature search engine, Gallica (gallica.bnf.fr); to
Eleni Evangelinou for her gift of Amber… The Tears of
Apollo, and to Ibrahim Faraj for discussions about the
Faturan Wikipedia entry and his Plastics Historical
Society article.

REFERENCES CITED
Baekeland, L. H. and H. L. Bender
1925 Phenol Resins and Resinoids. Industrial and
Engineering Chemistry 17(3):225-237.
Bouillet Frères
1914 Annuiare du Commerce Didot-Bottin. Paris.
Clément and Rivière
1924 Matières Plastiques Soies Artificielles. In Encyclo-
pédie de chimie industrielle, p. 358. J.-B. Baillière
et Fils, Paris.
Davidov, Corinne and Ginny R. Dawes
1988 The Bakelite Jewelry Book. Abbeville Press, New
York.
De Wildemain, D. E.
1919 A propos du commerce du caoutchouc et de
l’exploitation des caoutchoutiers. Bulletin du
Syndicat des Planteurs de Caoutchouc NS 21:247-
262.
Ellis, Carleton
1935 The Chemistry of Synthetic Resins, Vol. II. Rein-
hold, New York.
Evangelinos, Aris
1998 The Komboloi and its History. Komboloi Museum
Figure 5. Worry beads labeled “Faturan” for sale in
Lesvos, Greece, in 2015 (photo: F. Kaspers).
Publications, Nafplio, Greece.
Without definitive provenience, it is impossible Falabella, Rosanna
2016 Imitation Amber Beads of Phenolic Resin from
to know which, if any, of the dozens of commercial
the African Trade. Beads: Journal of the Society of
PF products of the first half of the 20th century were
Bead Researchers 28:3-15.
used to make any individual bead (Falabella 2016:6-7).
Plastic identification is difficult without formal chemi- Gromitsari, Rallou
cal analysis, and many plastic beads, starting with 2014 Amber… The Tears of Apollo. Komboloi Museum
the semi-synthetic ones made of Celluloid in the late Publications, Nafplio, Greece.
1800s, are often mislabeled. For these reasons, the W. Groves, James C.
Klaar Faturan bead sample card represents a significant 2020 16th Century Amber Varnish & Venetian Amber
piece of early plastic bead history. Varnish. http://jamescgroves.com/germanamber-
varnish.htm, accessed 9 August 2020.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Holdsworth, Ian and Ibrahim Faraj
The authors are very grateful to the Museum 2015 Faturan. Plastics Historical Society, London.
of Glass and Jewelry for making their archives avail- http://plastiquarian.com/.
--
The Bead Forum
Komboloi Museum trique, June 1918). Annales des Postes, Télégraphes
2020 Faturan Kombolois. https://www.komboloi. et Téléphones 7(3):472-481.
gr/indexe.php?cat=27, accessed 23 July 2020. Les Temps Nouveaux
Natural Baltic Amber 1913 Aidons-Nous. 19(24):7.
2020 Amber Varnish. https://www.natural-baltic-am- Wikipedia
ber.com/amber-varnish/, accessed 13 August 2020 Faturan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faturan,
2020. accessed 13 July 2020.
Novy, Petr
Rosanna Falabella
2008 Jablonecká Bižuterie [The Jewelry of Jablonec].
Independent Researcher
Grada, Prague.
United States
Die Perle imustbead@gmail.com
1924 Jungbauer advertisement. 1(5):38.
1926 Traun & Söhne advertisement. 3(2):26. Floor Kaspers
Taffin, M. Independent Researcher
1918 Review of Les nouveaux matériaux dans l’industrie The Netherlands
électrique (originally published in l’Industrie Élec- info@beadmuseum.com

Amber Prayer Beads and the Protestant Reformation

Rachel King
Beads have long played an essential role in every- homes. With respect to beads, researchers of 16th-
day life as counting devices. In Christian prayer, they century Europe have paid little attention to them, but
are best known as the key component of the rosary: as other currents in historical scholarship show, his-
a string of beads used by devotees to keep their place tory touches even the tiniest things, making beads the
in saying repetitive prayers. Indeed, the English word perfect subject for studying both “macro” and “micro”
‘bead’ derives from the word gebed meaning prayer. By developments. On the “macro” scale, we now know
circa 1500, the estimated population of Europe was that the market for amber beads continued to flour-
some 60 million people, the vast majority of whom ish in Roman Catholic Europe (King 2013). But what
were consumers, users or potential future users of became of rosaries that were no longer used for prayer
prayer beads (Figure 1). These might range in compo- in the reformed Protestant north? This question is
sition from compacted and fired earth, scented pastes
and wood, fruit pips and pits, and pieces of knotted
fabric, to worked glass or semi-precious and precious
stones (e.g., see Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum
1975; Frei and Bühler 2003; Galandra-Cooper and
Laven 2016; Jäger 2011; Keller and Neuhardt 2008;
Walsham 2014:368-398).
In the second decade of the 16th century, this
picture changed. What did the religious reforms of the
era mean for the practice of using beads for prayer?
Earlier historians, following the argument that Martin
Luther brought about a great and sudden rupture with
his 95 Theses (written 1517), posited a market collapse
and crisis for rosaries (Rohde 1937:17). Today, histo-
rians understand the reform to have been rather more
gradual, with many old practices surviving in private
Figure 1. Medieval amber beads strung on silk braid
(© Museum of London).
--
 Autumn 2020
ian devotion on the basis that it reminded Protestants
of what had been. As the decades wore on, rosaries
begin to vanish from inventories. Where did they go?
Rather than being disposed of, it is more likely that
beads were kept but threaded differently (i.e., not ar-
ranged in the distinctive patterns associated with Mar-
ian prayer). This meant that amber beads, single and
strung, were intellectually and visually uncoupled from
the practices of the old religion. A number of specific
local developments in northern Europe also allowed
them to be recast as Lutheran. Significantly, amber oc-
curs in Prussia, the first territory in Europe to become
fully Lutheran. At the court of the newly Protestant
duke, amber was celebrated as God’s specific gift to
the region, and increasingly developed as a material of
medicine with a key role to play in reproduction. The
family unit was an area of intense interest for Lutheran
pastors and their flock. In reformed households, amber
beads – old and new – were used in the promotion of
health. They were steeped in water, which was then
to be drunk; ground up and consumed powdered on
food; rubbed together to animate the resin’s character-
istic scent; and burned at the body’s various orifices.
Figure 2. Beads of yellow and white amber illustrated Analogies were drawn between the retrieval of amber
in Baumgart (1587:22) (courtesy of Sächsische Landesbib-
liothek–Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek, Dresden).
from the tumultuous waves of the Baltic Sea and the
Lutheran saving of souls with God’s word. Though
discussed fully in the author’s recent publication (King
there was certainly reduced demand for amber rosaries
2019). The following is a summary of the findings,
among reformed Europeans, amber beads and amber
highlighting the more “micro” elements of the history
more generally remained in high demand among Lu-
of amber rosary beads.
therans (Figure 2). Amber also stayed popular in other
Why were rosaries contentious? At the dawning
parts of Protestant Europe, but does not appear to
of the Reformation, the Virgin Mary was the most
have been laden with the same symbolic significance.
frequently depicted, described, and invoked saint in
Did anything distinguish beads for rosaries from
Europe. Accordingly, rosaries, which prompted and
beads for other purposes? In and of themselves, there is
aided prayer to Mary, were extremely widespread. The
and was absolutely no physical or technical difference
use of prayer beads was an obvious manifestation of
between an amber bead made to be strung on a rosary
devotion, not least because they were often carried or
or chaplet, and beads made for necklaces and bracelets
worn when not in use. The Indulgences with which
(Figure 3). It might be thought that facets aid diagno-
these prayers were rewarded made the practice a target
sis, but this characteristic is common to both secular
for religious reformers, who also criticized the convic-
and religious uses. Facets encouraged a bead to reflect
tion that Mary could intercede on behalf of believers.
light and sparkle; but were also an important compo-
Beads were censured for their perceived encourage-
nent of their appeal to the prayerful fingers, for the
ment of mindless prayer, and their reputation was tar-
many surfaces and ridges were believed to encourage
nished by their popular use as charms. Yet surprisingly,
amber to release its scent, which had religious benefits.
household inventories in Protestant Europe continued
Very few amber beads incised with explicit Christian
to list rosaries, and Martin Luther himself continued
imagery survive or are described in inventories. Chris-
to be spotted with them.
tian symbolism was usually added to a string of beads
What did amber mean to Lutherans? Luther ad-
vocated the retention of paraphernalia relating to Mar- --
The Bead Forum
temporary Prussians expressed surprise at the volume
of trade possible. Amber beads reached new markets
opened to Prussia by European expansionism. In short,
amber beads remained in demand. They continued
to be used for rosaries but also made the transition to
being used in bodily adornment and in other types of
prayer strands as the 16th century progressed.

REFERENCES CITED
Baumgart, Johann
1587 Der köstliche Agtstein oder Bornstein. Kirchner,
Magdeburg.
Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum
1975 500 Jahre Rosenkranz: Köln 1475-1975. Cologne.
Frei, Urs-Beat and Fredy Bühler (eds.)
2003 Der Rosenkranz: Andacht, Geschichte, Kunst.
Benteli, Bern.
Galandra-Cooper, Irene and Mary Laven
2016 The Material Culture of Piety in the Italian
Renaissance: Re-touching the Rosary. In The
Routledge Handbook of Material Culture in Early
Modern Europe, edited by Catherine Richardson,
Tara Hamling, and David Gaimster, pp. 338-
353. Routledge, London.
Gesneri, Conradi
1565 De rerum fossilium, lapidum et gemmarum.
­Zurich.
Jäger, Moritz
2011 Mit Bildern beten: Rosenkränze, Wundenringe,
Stundengebetsanhänger (1413-1600). Andachts­
schmuck im Kontext spätmittelalterlicher und
frühneuzeitlicher Frömmigkeit. Ph.D. disserta-
tion. Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen.
Keller, Peter and Johannes Neuhardt (eds.)
2008 Edelsteine, Himmelsschnüre: Rosenkränze und Ge-
betsketten. Dommuseum zu Salzburg, Salzburg.
King, Rachel
2013 The Beads with Which We Pray Are Made from
Figure 3. Faceted and smooth 16th-century beads It: Devotional Ambers in Early Modern Italy. In
(Gesneri 1565:105) (courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage
­Library, Washington, DC).
Religion and the Senses in Early Modern Europe,
edited by Wietse de Boer and Christine Göttler,
through the employment of a pendant, for example, pp. 153-176. Brill, Leiden.
inlaid with a sacred scene or inset with a relic. Identi- 2019 The Reformation of the Rosary Bead. In Religious
cally shaped pendants were also inlaid with portraits of Materiality in the Early Modern World, edited by
worldly rulers, however, and the generic pendants were Suzanna Ivanič, Mary Laven, and Andrew Mor-
easily adapted to serve a variety of consumers. Some of rall, pp. 193-210. Amsterdam University Press.
these customers were in the Ottoman East where con-
-10-
 Autumn 2020
Rohde, Alfred Rachel King
1937 Bernstein, ein Deutscher Werkstoff. Deutscher Curator, Dept. of Britain, Europe and Prehistory
Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin. The British Museum
Walsham, Alexandra London, United Kingdom
2014 Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain. RKing@britishmuseum.org
­Ashgate, Farnham. (beginning 1 Nov. 2020)

The Portable Antiquities Scheme

Rachel King
On 9 July 2020, the UK Portable Antiquities any finds potentially or certainly meeting the above
Scheme reached a significant milestone. Since being criteria. More recently, it has been highlighted that all
established in 1997, 1.5 million objects have been finds, regardless of physical makeup, are of interest.
recorded on the dedicated database www.finds.org. There has been a drive to encourage the recording of
uk. Every one of them was found and declared by a all finds, meaning that beads of other materials than
member of the public. The search term “bead” gives precious metal, or part precious metal, have also been
just under 1500 results, and presently just over 170 recorded.
records have not been assigned to a historical period Other projects established to record archaeologi-
(two examples are shown in Figure 1). To search the cal finds made by the public elsewhere in Europe are
database use: https://finds.org.uk/database/search/ad- Digitale Metaldetektorfund (DIME) in Denmark,
vanced. Records can be refined by county of origin, Metaaldetectievondsten (MEDEA) in Flanders, and
broad period, and other administrative categories. Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands (PAN) in the
The Portable Antiquities Scheme is run by the Netherlands.
British Museum and Amgueddfa Cymru-National
Museum Wales and was set up in response to the
Treasure Act of 1996 in England, Wales, and North-
ern Ireland. According to the Act, any metallic object
(coins notwithstanding) comprising at least 10% pre-
cious metal by weight of metal and at least 300 years
old when found is denoted Treasure. If the object is
of prehistoric date and comprises precious metal of
any percentage, it is Treasure. There are more detailed
stipulations for coins and for votive or ritual deposits,
regardless of material.
In the United Kingdom, anyone uncovering
historical artifacts, whether in the course of gardening,
Figure 1. Two Portable Antiquities Scheme records of
mudlarking, field walking, or metal detecting – to beads presently unassigned to any historical period.
name only a few contexts – is legally bound to submit

Free downloads of many past articles in

Beads: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers
available at http://surface.syr.edu/beads/
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The Bead Forum

Society News
A Note from the Editor she has examined glass beads from the Angkorian and
The Editor is pleased to announce that Alison Post-Angkorian periods in Cambodia and collaborated
Kyra Carter has been appointed Associate Editor. She on projects looking at ethnographic glass beads from
will help to solicit journal articles and review and edit upland communities in South and Southeast Asia. She
them. Should the Editor become incapacitated, she has undertaken fieldwork in Cambodia and Thailand
will assume the position. In addition, Rosanna Falabel- and is currently co-director of the “Pteah Project”
la has agreed to take over as Newsletter Editor, replac- which is investigating Angkorian residential spaces in
ing Chris DeCorse who has held the job since 2014. Battambang, Cambodia. Copies of many of her pub-
My thanks to him for his efforts. lications can be found at: https://uoregon.academia.
edu/AlisonCarter.

Alison Kyra Carter is an assistant professor in

the Department of Anthropology at the University of Rosanna Falabella, who holds a Ph.D. in Poly-
Oregon. Her interest in beads began with a job in her mer Science and Engineering from the University of
local bead store during high school (Bead in Hand in Massachusetts, Amherst, is retired from a government
Oak Park, IL) and continued in college with a job at and industrial research career focused on polymers, fi-
Bead Paradise in Oberlin, Ohio. Through this work bers, and composite materials, especially for aerospace
she was exposed to beads and bead traditions from applications. She has been a beaded-jewelry hobbyist
around the world and began to pursue academic stud- for over 20 years, and a bead collector and researcher
ies of beads, personal ornaments, and craft production since 2009. Her collecting is focused on antique and
in various undergrad classes. After graduating from vintage glass and phenolic resin beads found in the Af-
Oberlin College in 2001, she decided to pursue these rican trade. Rosanna’s current interest is a combination
interests further, and in 2004 began a PhD with Mark of her formal training in polymer science and her fas-
Kenoyer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her cination with old beads, leading to historical research
doctoral dissertation research looked at the exchange on early synthetic and semi-synthetic beads made from
of stone and glass beads in protohistoric (500 BCE Bakelite, Celluloid, etc., and she has published several
- 500 CE) mainland Southeast Asia. More recently, articles and given a number of lectures on imitation
-12- amber and coral beads utilized in the African trade.
 Autumn 2020
A support person with whom I spoke explained
that the pages and other material that were loaded
onto our site by the hackers might only have been
some small part of a larger “dark web” site, with pages,
pictures, and bits of coding spread out on the internet,
secreted in the folders of various ill-guarded websites
From the Secretary/Treasurer (and Webmaster) around the world. In addition to my adding Sucuris, a
security software, to the site to keep an eye on things,
Early in May, the Society’s website was hacked.
the Watermelon folk also did a “look around” to see if
Strange pages with Japanese characters and furniture
there was anything worrisome and decided it looked
appeared. Google warned us that they would attach a
fine. In addition, Google Console also scans the site
warning to our site in Google searches, alerting pos-
for troublesome material. If you choose to place an
sible visitors. I immediately dove in to determine what
order going forward, you do NOT need to establish
was happening.
an account. I have now deleted ALL accounts. Since
Our site, like millions of others around the
we do not do blogs or offer a means for people to add
world, is based on a web content software program
“comments,” there’s no need for individual accounts,
called Word Press which lives on the servers where a
other than for administrators like myself and web
site is stored. In our case, this is at GoDaddy. Each
designers. So just know we will never ask you for a
time WordPress updates, all applications (called “plug
password and for you “to log into your account.” Any
ins”) have to be updated as well. Sometimes when a
wording that suggests otherwise on the site is simply
plugin is updated, it can cause a site to crash, result-
boilerplate text that comes with the theme or Woo-
ing in a bit of nervousness each time it’s necessary to
Commerce. Ignore it.
perform updates. Some of those applications include
the “theme” that determines the appearance of the site. Herewith We Express Our Gratitude
Application developers sometimes abandon software A special thank you to those members who’ve
and cease updating it. When that happens, the risk helped ensure continuing publication by their Sustain-
grows that someone looking to hack into a site will do ing, Patron, or Benefactor membership monies. We are
so through one of those outdated pieces of software. grateful for your help. Our list below runs from
In our case, it is likely that our theme, Planet- 1 April through 30 August 2020.
shine Polaris, which had ceased to be updated late last Sustaining ($45) Deborah Zinn, Jean Nicholls,
year, was the likely portal. It became apparent that Timothy Mincey, Bead Society of Greater Washington,
what we needed to do was replace the theme, a tricky and Giorgio Teruzzi.
bit of business. We hired a local company in Portland,
Patron ($75+) Cynthia Hinds and Rochelle Marrinan
Oregon, called Watermelon Web Works to do this
($100).
work. This has now been accomplished and the site
looks largely as it did before, though the sales area Benefactor ($150+) Harley Glesby.
is a bit different. I’ll be cleaning that design up over Additionally, Kathy Anderson paid for her member-
the next several weeks to try to restore its appearance. ship twice and, rather than receiving a refund, chose to
Orders can still be placed as usual. donate the money instead.

Have you visited our page

of Peter Francis publications?

https://beadresearch.org/cbr-publications/

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The Bead Forum

Recent Publications
Bar-Yosef Mayer, D.E., I. Groman-Yaroslavski, O. onstrates that key cultural innovations on the eastern
Bar-Yosef, I. HershkovitzI, A. Kampen-Hasday, B. African coast are evident by 67 ka and exhibit remark-
Vandermeersch, Y. Zaidner, and M. Weinstein-Evron able diversity through the LSA and Iron Age.
2020 On Holes and Strings: Earliest Displays of
Falci, Catarina Guzzo, Alice C. S. Knaf, Annelou
Human Adornment in the Middle Palaeoli-
van Gijn, Gareth R. Davies, and Corinne L. Hof-
thic. PLoS ONE 15(7):e0234924; https://doi.
man
org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234924.
2020 Lapidary Production in the Eastern Caribbean:
Based on unaltered Glycymeris shells found in Misliya
A Typo-Technological and Microwear Study of
Cave, Israel (dated to 240-160 ka BP), and naturally
Ornaments from the Site of Pearls, Grenada.
perforated Glycymeris shells exhibiting string wear
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 12;
at Qafzeh Cave, Israel (dated to ca. 120 ka BP), the https://www.academia.edu/42033535/.
authors conclude that between those times there was Presents a study of a private collection of semiprecious
a shift from collecting complete valves to perforated lithic ornaments which combines raw material iden-
ones, reflecting both the desire and the technological tification, typo-technological analysis, and microwear
ability to suspend shell beads on string to be displayed analysis.
on the human body.
Costa, Mafalda, Pedro Barrulas, Luís Dias, Maria
da Conceição Lopes, João Barreira, Bernard Clist,
Karlis Karklins, Maria da Piedade de Jesus, Sónia
da Silva Domingos, Luc Moens, Peter Vandena-
beele, and José Mirão
2020 Determining the Provenance of the European
Glass Beads of Lumbu (Mbanza Kongo, Ango-
la). Microchemical Journal 154, 104531; https://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026
265X19323902?dgcid=coauthor#!
Trace element analysis, and rare earth element pattern
analysis in particular, established that most of the Eu-
ropean trade beads were produced in Venice, and the
glass beads from types 26 and 28 have been assigned to
the Bohemian glass industry.
d’Errico, Francesco, Africa Pitarch Martí, Ceri Ship-
ton, Emma Le Vraux, Emmanuel Ndiema, Steven
Goldstein, Michael D. Petraglia, and Nicole Boivin
2020 Trajectories of Cultural Innovation from the
Middle to Later Stone Age in Eastern Africa:
Personal Ornaments, Bone Artifacts, and Ocher
from Panga ya Saidi, Kenya. Journal of Hu- Falci, Catarina Guzzo, Dominique Ngan-Tillard,
man Evolution 141; https://doi.org/10.1016/ Corinne L. Hofman, and Annelou Van Gijn
j.jhevol.2019.102737. 2020 The Biographies of Bodily Ornaments from
This study includes a technological and morphomet- Indigenous Settlements of the Dominican
ric analysis of personal ornaments including ostrich Republic (AD 800-1600). Latin American An-
eggshell beads and those made from seashells. It dem- tiquity 31(1):180-201; https://www.academia.
edu/41995312/.
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 Autumn 2020
Reports on the production sequence and use life of Heo, Jina
beads and pendants recovered from five sites. Materials 2020 Symbolic Bead Exchange and Polity Interaction
include stone, shell, bone, teeth, coral, and ceramic. in Mahan Civilization (c. 100 CE-300 CE),
South Korea. Archaeological Research in Asia 23;
García Sanjuán, Leonardo, Carlos Rodríguez Rel-
https://www.academia.edu/43302016/.
lán, José Antonio Lozano Rodríguez, Marta Cintas
Mahan elites used beads as means to display social sta-
Peña, and María Martínez Merino
tus, to communicate with trading partners (or peers),
2020 Ladies in Red (and White): A Study of the Bead-
ed Attires from Montelirio (Andalucía, Spain). and to share ideology. The symbolic beading styles dis-
PAST. The Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society play a distinct spatial distribution pattern along with
94:5-7; https://www.academia.edu/42330290/. other elite goods, such as mound tombs and ceremo-
The Montelirio tholos, dated to the 28th century cal nial pottery, which reflect the formation of interaction
BC, contained the largest known assemblage of beads spheres.
ever discovered in Copper Age Iberia, or indeed west- Kashina, Ekaterina
ern Europe, with very few (if any) parallels worldwide. 2019 Carved Bird Pendants of Forest Hunter-Gath-
They are believed to have formed various garments erer-Fishers (East European Plain, 3500-2700
of beaded clothing, including at least two full-body BC): The Edible Totems. PowerPoint presen-
tunics. tation at the International Open Workshop
Socio-Environmental Dynamics over the Last
Grafe, Steven L.
15000 Years: The Creation of Landscapes VI,
2020 Plateau Belt Pouches. American Indian, Past and
Kiel, March 11-16. https://www.academia.
Present:Whispering Wind Magazine 48(2):5-7.
edu/38699848/.
A look at a particular form of beaded bag worn at the
Visual survey of the different forms of pendants found
waist by men and women on the Columbia River Pla-
at Volosovo culture sites in the Moscow region of Cen-
teau from the late 1800s to the present. Both materials
tral Russia.
and motifs are discussed.
Green, Richard
2020 Gifts of Sun and Stars: Souvenirs of the North
American Northeast. Spellicans Press, Oxford.
This book of essays focuses on the rich and varied
styles of 19th-century souvenir beadwork created by
the Native peoples of the North American Northeast.

Kodras, Frank and Richard Green

2020 Fancy Flower Patterns of the James Bay Cree.
American Indian, Past and Present: Whispering
Wind 48(1):6-13.
Description of the James Bay Cree and their trad-
ing interactions with Europeans. Includes extensive
descriptions of the sort of beaded objects made and
worn by these peoples, among them leggings, octopus
bags, and decorated hoods, the type of beads used, the
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The Bead Forum
motifs employed, and analysis of designs particular to Mărgărit, Monica and Adina Boroneanţ (eds.)
that area. 2020 Beauty and the Eye of the Beholder: Personal
Adornments across the Millennia. Editura Cetatea
Koleini, Farahnaz, Philippe Colomban, and Inno-
de Scaun, Targovişte. https://www.researchgate.
cent Pikirayi
net/publication/342957313.
2020 Post-15th Century European Glass Beads in
This volume contains 26 studies organized into three
Southern Africa: Composition and Classifica-
tion Using pXRF and Raman Spectroscopy. sections related to regional studies on adornments and
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 29; their use and presence in everyday life and afterlife.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/ Many deal specifically with beads and pendants, and
pii/S2352409X19306418. are available on the Internet.
Analysis identified six identified glass groups: soda-
based plant ash (61%), potash-rich wood ash (14%),
synthetic soda (8%), mixed alkali (4%), lead-soda
(22%), and natron (4%). Except for soda-based plant
ashes and natron (outliers), all the groups date back to
the 19th century.
Konwest, Elizabeth, Stacie M. King, and Ricardo
Higelin Ponce de León
2020 Conexiones globales y locales en entierros
coloniales en Nejapa, Oaxaca [Global and Lo-
cal Connections in Colonial Burials in Nejapa,
Oaxaca]. Anales de Antropología 54(1):105-116;
https://www.academia.edu/41716769/.
A variety of glass and jet beads accompanied burials
found beneath the floor of an elite adobe house in
Nejapa, Mexico. The majority of these formed a piece
(or pieces) of jewelry with a copper clasp; a few of the
beads are still strung on cotton thread.
Kradolfer, Philippe J. and Nomoda E. Djaba Martins Torres, Andreia
2020 The Art of Recycled Glass Beads. PJ&R Publications 2020 Las cuentas de vidrio de la iglesia de San Ga-
/ Ghana Art Publications, North Salt Lake, UT. briel Tacuba (México): un puente entre dos
Describes the techniques currently used to produce mundos [Glass Beads from the San Gabriel
powder-glass beads in Ghana, and provides informa- Tacuba Church (Mexico): A Bridge between
tion concerning their history and cultural significance. Two Worlds]. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio
Goeldi. Ciências Humanas 15(1); http://editora.
museu-goeldi.br/bh/artigos/chv15n1_2020/
cuentas(torres).pdf.
This work reflects on beads in relationships between
Europeans, Africans, and American natives during the
conquest and colonization of the New World, most
notably the specific impact on the local communities
of the Mexico Valley which had not seen glass before,
and investigates its meaning as an incorporation of the
“European exotic” in the Americas.
Medchill, Brian, Chris Loendorf, and Teresa
­Rodrigues
2020 Indigenous Disk Beads in the Southern South-
-16- west: Contemporary, Ethnographic, Ethno-
 Autumn 2020
historical, and Archaeological Evidence. Kiva: Presents new information on certain ornaments from a
Journal of Southwest Anthropology and History; grave discovered in 1932 on Stolićeva njiva in Golubić
https://doi.org/10.1080/00231940.2020.17754 near Knin, Croatia. It also considers all related finds
25. from prominent female graves of the same burial ho-
Presents an overview of the disk beads found within rizon. The data are used to reconstruct the elite female
the Phoenix Basin in southern Arizona, including costume of the 8th and early 9th centuries in what is
manufacturing techniques. now Croatia. Includes necklaces and earrings com-
Niţu, Elena-Cristina, Marin Cârciumaru, Adrian posed of gold, silver, and glass beads and pendants.
Nicolae, Ovidiu Cîrstina, Florin Ionuţ Lupu, and
Mirian Leu
2019 Mobility and Social Identity in the Mid Up-
per Paleolithic: New Personal Ornaments from
Poiana Cireşului (Piatra Neamţ, Romania). PloS
ONE 14(4):e0214932; https://www.research-
gate.net/publication/332648351.
The ornaments discovered in the Early Gravettian layer
include perforated shells from three species of mol-
lusks, suggesting the connection of local communities
with the Mediterranean area as well as a possible move-
ment of populations from the south of the continent
to the east of the Carpathians.
Stewart, Brian A., Yuchao Zhao, Peter J. Mitchell,
Genevieve Dewar, James D. Gleason, and Joel D.
Blum
2020 Ostrich Eggshell Bead Strontium Isotopes
Reveal Persistent Macroscale Social Network-
ing across Late Quaternary Southern Africa.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
of the United States of America; https://doi.
Pascual Benito, Josep Lluís and Ricard Marlasca org/10.1073/pnas.1921037117.
Martín Analysis of ostrich eggshell beads from highland Leso-
2019 Tiburones y mantarrayas. Aprovechamiento de
tho reveals that since the late Middle Stone Age, net-
vértebras de pez para la fabricación de cuentas de
works connected ecologically complementary regions
collar en la península Ibérica entre el Neolítico
over minimal distances of several hundred kilometers.
antiguo y la Edad del Bronce. In Recursos marins
en el passat. IV Jornades d’arqueozoologia. Museu
de Prehistòria de València, edited by J.L. Pas- You can help keep
cual and A. Sanchis, pp. 193-220. Museu de
Prehistòria de València. https://www.academia. The Bead Forum
edu/41333719/.
On the use of fish vertebrae (mostly those of sharks
vital by sending us your
and stingrays) for the manufacture of beads on the news items, short articles,
Iberian peninsula between the Late Neolithic and the
Bronze Age.
and interesting tales from
Petrinec, Maja
the bead world. Next
2019 On Jewellery from Golubić and Female Cos- deadline: 1 April 2021.
tumes from the Eighth and the First Half of
the Ninth Century. Starohrvatska prosvjeta 46.
https://www.academia.edu/40967426/. -17-
The Bead Forum

Who We Are
The Society of Bead Researchers is a non-profit corporation, founded in 1981 to foster research on beads
and beadwork of all materials and ­periods and to expedite the dissemination of the resultant knowledge. Member-
ship is open to all persons involved in the study of beads, as well as those interested in keeping abreast of current
trends in bead research. The Society publishes a biannual newsletter, The Bead Forum, and an annual peer-re-
viewed journal, BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers. The Society’s website address is www.beadre-
search.org.
Contents of the newsletter include current research news, listings of recent publications, conference and
symposia announcements, and brief articles on various aspects of bead research. Both historic and prehistoric
subject materials are welcome.
The deadline for submissions for the next Bead Forum is 1 April 2021. Electronic submissions should be in
Word for Windows 6.0 or later with no embedded sub-programs such as “End Notes.” References cited should be
in Historical Archaeology format (http://www.sha.org/documents/SHAStyleGuide-Dec2011.pdf ).
Send submissions to the newsletter editor:
Rosanna Falabella
BeadForumNewsletter@gmail.com

ISSN: 0829-8726 (Print) and ISSN: 2469-8555 (Online and Electronic)

Officers and Others

President: J. Mark Kenoyer, Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison; jkenoyer@wisc.
edu
Secretary/Treasurer: Alice Scherer, Founder, Center for the Study of Beadwork; alice@europa.com
Editor: Karlis Karklins, former Head of Material Culture Research, Parks Canada; karlis4444@gmail.com
Associate Editor: Alison Kyra Carter, Assistant Professor, Anthropology Dept., University of Oregon;
acarter4@uoregon.edu
Newsletter Editor: Rosanna Falabella; BeadForumNewsletter@gmail.com
Newsletter Design, Layout, and Mailing: Alice Scherer
Journal Layout and Printing Preparation: David Weisel
Webmaster: Alice Scherer
Finance Committee: Joan Eppen and Lois Rose Rose
Editorial Advisory Committee: Laurie Burgess (chair), Christopher DeCorse, and Marvin T. Smith
Publications Committee: Karlis Karklins (chair), Margret Carey, and Jeffrey M. Mitchem

Society of Bead Researchers, PO Box 13719, Portland, OR 97213

https://www.beadresearch.org • http://www.beadresearchjournal.org

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