A bead I'll probably never make
I spent most of my afternoon in the online collections of the Swedish National Historical Museum, looking at the glass beads in their collections. If there's one thing historical lampworking has taught me, it's how to say "glass bead" in half a dozen different languages I don't actually speak.
It was immensely useful. I'm confident that I'm now at least half-literate in Swedish written museum terminology, and I found hundreds of beads from various excavations over the years. One of them was this beauty.
Yup, it's definitely covered in swastikas. I don't think that'd be too popular an item to recreate, despite the ~1000 year time difference between the Norse residents of Södermanland and the fun-loving psychopaths of the 20th century Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.
That one aside, I found dozens of new inspirations. I think this one might be my next style to master. I can see how it's being done; it will just be a question of making sure I've got the stringer control for such fine detail.
This one struck me with its modern appearance, but it dates back to Viking-era Gotland:
Then I went looking for images of necklaces, since I want to make sure my beads are not only historically accurate in and of themselves but also are correct in their contexts. Most folks seem to forget that there should be simple beads among the fancy ones. Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell whether the strands recreated in the Museum's digital collections reflect all the beads from a given grave or disturbance or just the ones that caught the photographer or curator's eye. However, I really liked this strand. I think I might give it a shot at some point in the near future.
It was immensely useful. I'm confident that I'm now at least half-literate in Swedish written museum terminology, and I found hundreds of beads from various excavations over the years. One of them was this beauty.
Yup, it's definitely covered in swastikas. I don't think that'd be too popular an item to recreate, despite the ~1000 year time difference between the Norse residents of Södermanland and the fun-loving psychopaths of the 20th century Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.
That one aside, I found dozens of new inspirations. I think this one might be my next style to master. I can see how it's being done; it will just be a question of making sure I've got the stringer control for such fine detail.
This one struck me with its modern appearance, but it dates back to Viking-era Gotland:
Then I went looking for images of necklaces, since I want to make sure my beads are not only historically accurate in and of themselves but also are correct in their contexts. Most folks seem to forget that there should be simple beads among the fancy ones. Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell whether the strands recreated in the Museum's digital collections reflect all the beads from a given grave or disturbance or just the ones that caught the photographer or curator's eye. However, I really liked this strand. I think I might give it a shot at some point in the near future.