[MR] Gemstone Beads?

[egeorges]

Grizel's resource truly is marvelous, and a good place to start.

Gemstones were frequently used in period as beads, both in jewelry and on
clothing.  Pearls, garnets, onyx, coral, carnelian, chalcedony, gold,
amethyst, and bloodstone were all quite commonly used.  Glass was also quite
frequently used to substitute for precious materials.

Also check out:
The History of Beads (from 30,000BC to Present)
Lois Sherr Dubin
Harry Abhrams , Inc, Publisher
ISBN: 0-8109-0736-4

Many of the bead scholars in the society consider this a great starting
point.  It has a pretty cool table in it that not only describes time
periods for certain beads, but also origins for certain types of beads.

Since you are looking at late period western europe, check out any materials
you can find about the Idar-Oberstein gemcutters and beadmakers.  They were
just getting cranked up around that time......


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From: "Towey, Brian" <cbt4489 at GlaxoWellcome.com>
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 13:01:27 -0400
Subject: [MR] Gemstone Beads?

Friends and neighbors-

May I draw upon the encyclopedic knowledge of the group?  I'd like to know
if and how gemstone beads were used in period, particularly for embroidery
in my focus periods of 14th and 16th C western Europe.

I've found a bargain source for bead necklaces in various precious and
semi-precious stones.  It occurs to me that such beads might be very pretty
if they were cut from their strands and embroidered onto an SCA doodad.
With enough colors, they might even be used to make a picture or heraldic
device.

Your servant,

Charles Fleming


From: "Signora Apollonia Margherita degli Albizzi" <apollonia at bellsouth.net>
To: "atlantia at atlantia. sca. org" <atlantia at atlantia.sca.org>
Subject: Re: [MR] Gemstone Beads?
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 16:01:37 -0400

Check out www.medievalbeads.com

Apollonia

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