what kind of bead is this?

[Unitof1]

what kind of bead is this?

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[troll]

Its a green glass venerable. Without a scale and with a walruses genitalia nudging into frame on the left.

[Unitof1]

Sorry I thought that I had put a standard walruse thingy init.

i can spot the green which does have a later medieval attraction but why the venerable?

[mpoole]

Not sure, is it an oosik or the whole walrus? That's important, because if it's a walrus, that's one very large bead!

If you can show a better photo with a useful scale, I can at least see if it's wound or drawn glass.

[Unitof1]

ten characters
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[troll]

...the venerable Bede ?!........ never mind........

[deadlylampshade]

Nice one Troll...beat me to it!!}

[mpoole]

Green glass isn't uncommon, it looks like a drawn-glass bead rather than wound, and may be a pressed bead. Drawn beads are made from a tube of glass which is made by gathering a blob of molten glass at the end of a hollow tube, blowing an air bubble into the middle and then pulling the glass into a tube. Most small beads are made this way. Its tapered shape could be from a press, many lengths of glass rod were pressed and then cut into lengths of beads, it could be half of a biconical bead too.

I don't have my bead books at home but I'll look and see if I can find an equivalent for it on Monday.

-Su

[mpoole]

...the venerable Bede ?!........ never mind........

We have a display of paternoster beads under the heading 'Venerable Beads'. One out of ten people get it.

[Unitof1]

pet topic,

but before the venerable bead-pray, are there any references as to how a bead was refered to/called? it seems to me that the term bead is not very old (like palaeolithic) and there does not seem to be older words for thing with a hole through it that could be threaded through a string (possibly then worn/carried about/used for counting? for some affect/effect) before venerable bede- have i missed something obvious