Rare 9th C. Viking Glass Bead Necklace

Northern Europe, Viking / Norse culture, ca. 9th to 11th century CE. A lengthy strand necklace strung with dozens of glass beads dating to the Viking era or earlier Roman and Byzantine workshops. This wearable necklace contains glass in semi-translucent and opaque in hues of cobalt, others a pearlescent-white, shimmery yellow, or even bichrome with stripes or millefiori. A single silver bead formed by a coiled wire is also part of the strand. The beads are a variety of molded forms, either ovoid, lozenge, spherical, or tubular, with several beads bearing a knobbed surface. The central pendant bead is a millefiori-style with small canes of white and cobalt glass coursing throughout the body and make for an interesting eye-shaped motif. The beads are strung in modern times with a silver-plated barrel clasp to make this a wearable piece. Size of necklace: 33" L (83.8 cm); eye bead: 0.75" W (1.9 cm)

By 800 CE, the Vikings were trading across a huge area, from the islands of the North Atlantic (the first glass beads known from North America appear to have come from the Viking trading post at L'anse aux Meadow, Newfoundland) to northern Russia and the Islamic world; glass beadmaking was a standard in many of the regions they visited, and so they returned home and established beadmaking workshops in Scandinavia such as Helgo, Paviken, or Birka.

Provenance: private Carmichael, California, USA collection, acquired in the 1990s

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#167435
Condition Report: Mineral deposits within beads. Iridescence from age on many. Chips and nicks throughout, especially the knobbed beads. Strung in modern times with modern wire and clasp. Wearable!