The Bead Resource Directory

A little bit about the history of

The Glass Bead...

Bead Making was said to have started around 2500 B.C.

Beads were intially made of a ceramic type paste, called faince.  Faince was eventually glazed with a substance believed to have sand or silica, leaving the beads with a glossy shine.  This was the beginning of glass.  Egyptians began to work with sand and silica mixtures eventually creating the basis of even a modern day recipe for glass.

Glass was shiny and used for adornment.  It also held value and was used for trading as well.  Other cultures began to make glass.  Beadmakers however, did not make their glass.  Glass was obtained and their craft was to make the beads. 

Beads were made in a variey of ways. 
The most popular include wound, folded, coil, and cane(cut).

Beadmaking grew over time and across the globe.

Bead Making Eras

Early Roman 1000 BC - 476 AD
Islamic 600 AD - 1400 AD

Glass is a very solid and slow to degrade material. Therefore the beads are still found in many burial sites and graves.  Equipment found in bead making "centers" also help fill in the many blanks in the story of glass beads and their history.
There is also written documentation about beads and their trading, some even explaining in depth, how beads were valued and traded.  Beads, although they did not have any "numeric" value, were a tradable commodity. Some more sought after or valuable than others.

Just as beads had a very large history prior to the SCA years of 600 - 1600 AD, they continued to play a large part in our worlds history, and continue to fill their place in time even today!

(We all know that in 1492, Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue, finding himself in the bahamas...but did you know, the trade commodity he carried was glass beads!!  The trade routes brought even the most common Trade Beads we know from Europe to what we now know to be the Americas, and the native Indians,
 prized these beads as well!)