Mirror decoration bead, 1000-1200 AD
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This Islamic mosaic glass ‘mirror decoration’ bead was produced by a very distinctive process. Instead of winding or laying trails of glass on a rod, the craftsman started with a disk of mosaic glass with concentric white and red circles. He heated the disk until soft and skewered it through its center. Then, he folded it in half (like a Mexican taco) and let the edges fuse together. Finally, he alternately stretched the middle and compressed the ends, forming a ball. This process results in a characteristic design and seam pattern. “Most mirror beads appear to be of the 10-12th century, with a concentration in the 11th century, but some finds were dated also to the 13th and 14th centuries. . . The beads are frequent in collections of Syrian origin, but occur also in Egypt and in various Asiatic Islamic countries, as well as in east and west Africa and eastern Europe” (Spaer 2001:104). Mosaic glass The concept of mosaic glass encompasses a range of techniques that all involve arranging glass of different colors together, with sufficient heat to cause fusing of the glass but not so much that the colors mix. When this mosaic concept is used together with the drawing techniques made possible by the ductility of glass, the initial arrangement is miniaturized. The manufacture of twisted or reticella canes is a simple example of mosaic glass and drawing principles. Stern and Shlick-Nolte (1994:54) explain: “The craftsman could make [twisted canes] by heating two or three monochrome canes and twisting them. A method now common is to pick up, one after the other, two or three chunks of color of roughly the same size and to shape them in a cone. Because the glassworker rotates the cone while he draws the glass, the colors twist around each other. . . Reticella cane is drawn from a hot cone-shaped bit of glass in the same manner as for monochrome cane, but before the glass is drawn, the glassworker marvers [to marver: to press or roll softened glass on a smooth surface to smooth it or to consolidate applications] one or more monochrome canes of contrasting color into the surface of the cone. . . Depending on the placing of the canes on the cone and the speed with which the cone is rotated, intricate lace patterns can be achieved. . . Making canes with concentric colors, called ‘overlay cane,’ such as is used in mosaic eye beads, requires a completely different method. Again, Stern and Shlick-Nolte (1994:56) explain: “To make an overlay cane, one works from the center out, applying layers of glass for each ring of color. First, a chunk of preheated glass is softened and shaped into a cylinder for the core or center of the design. A second chunk or bit of contrasting color is heated on a second metal rod, shaped, and applied to the cylinder on the first tool. There are various ways to do this. . . 1. A trail is wound spirally around the cylinder. . . 2. A thick trail is draped lengthwise onto the cylinder and pinched off at the end of the cylinder, then a second trail is applied next to the first, and so forth until the whole cylinder is covered with trails of color. . . 3. the chunk of glass on the second tool is shaped into an inverted cone, fused to the cylinder on the first tool, and then the inverted cone is separated from the second tool and marvered onto the cylinder. . . When all the colors have been applied, a thick cylinder results that is heated thoroughly and lengthened (drawn). . .” Mosaic bars with patterns such as rosettes or faces were achieved by ‘cold bundling’ in which pre-made bars or chunks are arranged when cold, bundled, and heated until the glass fuses. In the case of mosaic bars, the fused glass is shaped by marvering, and then drawn to miniaturize the design. Slices are obtained from the bars, which can then be used as inlays. Mosaic glass appears to have been invented in Egypt, and Egyptian craftsmen remained masters of this technique, which became common during the first century BC. Glass Beads When glass first became widespread as a new medium available to antique craftsmen, around 1550 BC, it was a luxury item used either as an ersatz for semiprecious stones, or as an analog to stone offering new exciting colors unavailable in natural stone. Since one of the established uses for semiprecious stones was to manufacture ornamental beads, glass beadmaking was a natural evolution of existing traditions. The first glass beads of the bronze age were, like most precious stones, monochrome. Soon, they became bichrome with the addition of trailed decoration. But as the period of prosperity of the second millennium came to an end, and the market for luxury goods dried up, the whole glass industry stalled for hundreds of years. With improving general conditions, glassworking shops reopened, and with the 9th century came a new distinctive type of bead: the Aegean triangular eye bead, presenting three protruding eyes applied to a base bead. The 8th and 7th century saw an important paradigm shift from opaque, stone-like, glass to considerable experimentation with the translucence of glass. It is during the 6th century, which saw a marked expansion in glass production in general, that more technically complex beads such as stratified eye beads became frequent. One gets a sense that glass workers were driven to compete in technical prowess. Trailing and layering would be the state of the art for the next three hundred years, until Hellenistic glassworkers developed and applied glass drawing techniques to beadmaking. Multicolored and concentric rods and mosaic bars considerably enriched the repertoire of bead decoration, and brought about a blossoming of beadmaking techniques. They also further divided the skills: the raw glass ingots could be made in one shop, the drawn canes or bars used for decoration in another, and the beads in a third, not necessarily in the same country. Although the invention of glass blowing, around the end of the millennium, did not technically affect beadmaking, as blowing is not applicable to the manufacture of beads, it had a profound economic impact on all glass. The new affordability of glass vessels made glass a high volume industry, with increasingly uniformly high quality products. The economic machinery and the safety of commercial routes brought by the might and extent of the Roman Empire also made for a free flow of goods and artisans throughout the Empire. With the decline of the Roman Empire came a slow decline in the quality of glass goods. Until the rise of Venetian glassmaking in the 15th century, glassworkers were by and large content with replicating the styles invented by their predecessors. With the exception of the new palette of brilliant colors developed by Islamic glassworkers between the 9th and 12th century, and despite continued strong demand for glass beads, beadmaking had reached a plateau. Determining the origin and age of glass beads is difficult. Even when you are lucky enough to know the context in which a bead was retrieved, is does not firmly establish its origin, as beads are durable jewels that travel well. People in antiquity were avid for products from afar, and just as prone to collect items from previous centuries as we are ourselves are. Some styles of beads may have been made especially for exportation, and therefore be more common outside of their area of production. The will to overcome these circumstantial difficulties has only recently been found in the archaeological community which initially found little interest in the study of beads, with the exception of a precious few, including Flinders Petrie, proving once again his status as a true visionary. The publication of Maud Spaer’s extensive catalog of Beads and other small objects from the Israel Museum in 2001 constitutes a pioneering step towards recognition of beads as a significant class of archaeological treasures. Bibliography (for this item)Spaer, Maud2001 Ancient glass in the Israel Museum: beads and other small objects. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. (104, 115 #184-187) Bibliography (on Mosaic glass)Stern, E. Marianne, and Birgit Schlick-Nolte1994 Early Glass of the Ancient World 1600 BC - AD 50 Ernesto Wolf Collection. Gerd Hatje, Ostfildern, Germany. Bibliography (on Glass Beads)Spaer, Maud2001 Ancient glass in the Israel Museum: beads and other small objects. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. |
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