Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T21:37:26.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Bronze Age Glass Bead from Wilsford, Wiltshire: Barrow G.42 in the Lake group

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Margaret Guido ,
Julian Henderson ,
Michael Cable ,
Justine Bayley  and
Leo Biek
Margaret Guido
Affiliation:
44 Long Street, Devizes, Wiltshire
Julian Henderson
Affiliation:
Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 20560, USA
Michael Cable
Affiliation:
Department of Ceramics, Glasses and Polymers, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN
Justine Bayley
Affiliation:
Ancient Monuments Laboratory, 23 Savile Row, London WIX 2HE
Leo Biek
Affiliation:
15 Belsize Square, London NW3 4HT
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper deals with a unique glass bead from the second millennium BC in Wessex. Overlooked for more than 150 years, it has now been recognized for its intrinsic interest and general importance and is here presented for its wide significance in ancient Europe and beyond (pls 8 and 9).

In Ancient Wiltshire (1812, 210) Richard Colt Hoare recorded the excavation of a barrow in a group of Bronze Age date at Wilsford: ‘No. 7 is a large bell-shaped barrow’ (now regarded as a bowl barrow) ‘composed entirely of vegetable earth. It contained within a cist a little pile of burned bones with which had been deposited a very fine brass pin, a large stone bead which had been stained red, a bead of ivory and a lance head of brass’. This account is based on the records of William Cunnington (1807, 5–6), which include a transcription of a letter from the original excavator, a Mr Owen. The dimensions of the barrow are there given as 80 ft in diameter, 9 ft high, with a circular cist 18 in deep. The barrow is described as ‘No. 6 of Mr Duke's barrows’; there is thus a discrepancy in the numbering of the barrow, since Colt Hoare referred to it as Lake No. 7, while Cunnington kept to No. 6. The barrow, though recently ploughed, still stands to a height of over 2 m, and is today known as G.42 (Grinsell 1957, 211).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , December 1984 , pp. 245 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Annable, F. K. and Simpson, D. D. A., 1964. Catalogue of the Neolithic and Bronze Age Collections in Devizes Museum.Google Scholar
Appert, L. and Henrivaux, J., 1894. Verre et Verrerie. Paris.Google Scholar
ApSimon, A. M., 1954. ‘Dagger graves in the Wessex Bronze Age’, Univ. Lond. Inst. Archaeol. Ann. Rep. 10, 37–62.Google Scholar
Bachtik, S. and Pospichal, V., 1964. Zušlechťování Skla (The decoration of glass). Prague.Google Scholar
Bamford, C. R., 1977. Colour generation and control inglass. Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Biek, L., 1983. ‘The ethnic factor in archaeotechnology’, in Aspinall, A. and Warren, S. E. (eds), Proc. 22nd Intern. Symp. Archaeometry, Bradford, 303–13.Google Scholar
Biek, L. and Bayley, J., 1979. ‘Glass and other vitreous materials’, World Archaeology 11 (1), 1–25.Google Scholar
Biek, L., Butcher, S., Carruthers, T. G., Rooksby, H. P., Warren, S. E., Grummet, J. G., Hedges, R. E. M., and Kaczmarczyk, A., 1980. ‘Enamels and glass pastes on Roman-period “bronzes” found at Nor'nour, Isles of Scilly’, Proc. 16th Intern. Archaeometry Conference 1976, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Biek, L., Gilmore, G. R., and Bayley, J., forthcoming. ‘Scientific examination of the glass beads’, in Hirst, S. M., Excavations at Sewerby, Bridlington, Yorkshire.Google Scholar
Bimson, M., 1983. ‘Coloured glass and millefiori‘, in Bruce-Mitford, R., The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, 3 (ed. Evans, Angela Care), 924–44. British Museum Publications, London.Google Scholar
Brill, R. H., 1969. ‘The scientific investigation of ancient glasses’, Proc. VIII International Congress on Glass, London, 47–68. Society of Glass Technology, Sheffield.Google Scholar
Brill, R. H., 1970. ‘The chemical interpretation of the texts’, in Oppenheim, et al. 1970, 105–28.Google Scholar
Brill, R. H. and Wosinski, J. F., 1965. ‘A huge slab of glass in the ancient necropolis of Beth She'arim’, Proc. VII International Congress on Glass, Brussels, No. 219.Google Scholar
Brown, S. F. and Norton, F. H., 1959. ‘Constitution of copper-red glazes’, J. Amer. Ceramic Soc. 42, 499–503.Google Scholar
Cable, M., forthcoming A, in Crossley, D. W., Excavations at Kimmeridge, Dorset.Google Scholar
Cable, M., forthcoming B. ‘The simulation of “Nimrud”-type red cuprite glass.“Google Scholar
Caley, E. R., 1962. Analysis of Ancient Glasses 1790–1957. The Corning Museum of Glass, New York.Google Scholar
Cox, G. A., Heavens, O. S., Newton, R. G., and Pollard, A. M., 1979. ‘A study of the weathering behaviour of medieval glass from York Minster’, J. Glass Studies 21, 54–75.Google Scholar
Cox, G. A. and Pollard, A. M., 1977. ‘X-ray fluorescence analysis of ancient glass: the importance of sample preparation’, Archaeometry 19, 45–54.Google Scholar
Cunnington, W. (I), 1807. Notebook 4, Deyizes Museum.Google Scholar
Cunnington, W. (III), 1896. Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Museum of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society at Devizes. Part I: The Stourhead Collection. Devizes Museum.Google Scholar
Farnsworth, M. and Ritchie, P. D., 1938. ‘Spectrographic studies on ancient glass. Egyptian glass mainly of the 18th Dynasty with special reference to its cobalt content’, Technical studies in the field of the fine arts 6 (3), 155–73.Google Scholar
Forbes, C. L., 1983. Porosphaera globularis (Phillips), worked. Report in Devizes Museum.Google Scholar
Gerloff, S., 1975. The Early Bronze Age Daggers in Great Britain and a Reconsideration of the Wessex Culture. Prähistorische Bronzefunde VI. 2. C. H. Beck, Munich.Google Scholar
Gillies, K. J. S. and Cox, G. A., forthcoming A. ‘Analysis of the weathering crust on medieval glasses from York Minster and Canterbury and Carlisle Cathedrals.’Google Scholar
Gillies, K. J. S. and Cox, G. A., forthcoming B. ’Analysis of 15th century window glass excavated in York.’Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1957. ‘Archaeological gazetteer’, in Pugh, R. B. and Crittall, E. (eds), A History of Wiltshire', 1, pt 1, 21–279. The Victoria History of the Counties of England.Google Scholar
Guido, M., 1978. The Glass Beads of the Prehistoric and Roman Periods in Britain and Ireland. Soc. Ant. Lond. Res. Rep. 35.Google Scholar
Harding, A. F., 1971. ‘The Earliest Glass in Europe’, Archaeol. Rozhledy 22, 188–200.Google Scholar
Henderson, J., 1982. X-ray fluorescence analysis of Iron Age glass. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Bradford.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. and Warren, S. E., 1981. ‘X-ray fluorescence analysis of Iron Age glass: beads from Meare and Glastonbury Lake Villages’, Archaeometry 23 (1), 83–94.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. and Warren, S. E., 1983. ‘Analysis of Prehistoric lead glass’, Proc. 22nd Intern. Symposium on Archaeometry, Bradford, 168–80.Google Scholar
Hoare, R. Colt, 1812. Ancient Wiltshire, I.Google Scholar
Hughes, M. J., 1972. ‘A technical study of opaque red glass of the Iron Age in Britain’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. 38, 98–107.Google Scholar
Matson, F. R., 1951. ‘The composition and working properties of ancient glass’, J. Chemical Education 28, 82–87.Google Scholar
Newton, R. G., 1978. ‘Colouring agents used by medieval glassmakers’, Glass Technol. 19, 59–60.Google Scholar
Oppenheim, A. L., Brill, R. H., Barag, D., and Von Saldern, A., 1970. Glass and glassmaking in Ancient Mesopotamia. Corning Museum of Glass, New York.Google Scholar
Piggott, S., 1938. ‘The early Bronze Age in Wessex’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. 4, 52–106.Google Scholar
Pollard, A. M., 1979. X-ray fluorescence and surface studies of glass with application to the durability of medieval window glass. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of York.Google Scholar
Raftery, B. and Henderson, J., forthcoming. ‘Some glass beads of the later Bronze Age in Ireland’, Marburger Studien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte.Google Scholar
Sayre, E. V., 1963. ‘The intentional use of antimony and manganese in ancient glasses’, Proc. 6th Intern. Congress on Glass: Advances inglass technology, section 2: historical papers and discussion (eds Matson, F. R. and Rindone, G. E.) 263–82. New York.Google Scholar
Sayre, E. V. and Smith, R. W., 1967. ‘Some materials of glass manufacturing in antiquity’, in Levey, M. (ed.), Archaeological Chemistry: a symposium, 279–312. 3rd Symposium on archaeological chemistry, Atlantic City, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Smith, R. W., 1963. ‘Archaeological evaluation of analyses of ancient glass’, Proc. 6th Intern. Congress on Glass: Advances inglass technology, section 2; historical papers and discussion (eds Matson, F. R. and Rindone, G. E.), 283–90. New York.Google Scholar
Spitzer-Aronson, M., 1974. ‘La distribution du cuivre dans les verres rouges des vitraux mediévaux’, C.R. Acad. Sc., Paris, t. 278 (17 Juin 1974), 1437–40.Google Scholar
Thorpe, C. and Sykes, R. F. R., 1967. ‘Analysis of glass’, in Crossley, D. W., ‘Glassmaking in Bagot's Park, Staffordshire, in the 16th Century’, Post-med. Archaeol. 1, 72.Google Scholar
Tress, H. J., 1962. ‘Ruby and related glasses from the standpoint of chemical potential of oxygen in glass, part 2: gold and copper glasses’, Glass Technology 3, 95–106.Google Scholar
Turner, W. E. S., 1954. ‘Studies of ancient glass and glass-making processes. Part I: crucibles and melting temperatures employed in ancient Egypt at about 1370 B.C.’, J. Soc. Glass Technology 38, 436–44.Google Scholar
Turner, W. E. S., 1956. ‘Studies in ancient glass and glass-making processes. Part IV: the chemical composition of ancient glasses’, HJ. Soc. Glass Technology 40, 162–81.Google Scholar
Turner, W. E. S. and Rooksby, H. P., 1959. ‘A study ofopalising agents in ancient opal glasses’, Glastechnische Berichte 32 (VIII), 17–28.Google Scholar
Vargin, V. V., 1967. Technology of enamels. Maclaren and Sons, London.Google Scholar
Venclová, N., 1983. ‘Prehistoric Eye Beads in Central Europe’, J. Glass Studies 25, 11–17.Google Scholar
Weyl, W. A., 1967. Coloured Glasses. Society of Glass Technology, Sheffield.Google Scholar