File:Blue Glass Bead of Unknown Date (FindID 561972).jpg

English: A blue glass bead of uncertain date, late Iron Age to Early-Medieval. This bead is circular with a cylindrical perforation and has an external diameter of 8.03mm and internal diameter of 4.22mm. The bead has a thickness of 3.57mm and weighs 0.21g.

National Finds Adviser Dr Kevin Leahy states that Peggy Guido said that this type of bead could date from between the Iron Age to Early-Medieval. Dr Leahy also found lots of this type of bead at excavations at the Cleatham Anglo-Saxon Cemetery and feels that an Early-Medieval date is most likely.

National Finds Adviser Dr Helen Geake said that this bead looks like Brugmann's 'blue' type of early Anglo-Saxon bead of phase A1, c.AD450-530 (Brugmann, 2004, 34 and 74, fig.80). This is probably a wound bead made from translucent glass, the size and shape is right for this to be the case, however it is not possible to confirm this from the image.

Unfortuneately this artefact was described, dimensions recorded and the photograph taken several years before being recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database. Therefore it has not been possible to make further observations of this bead in order to confirm whether or not it is a bead of wound construction.

"A 'wound' bead is made by wrapping the molten glass around a metal rod, and
it's often possible to see concentric lines around the perforation, or
horizontal lines across the body of the bead, resulting from this process,
or even to see a kind of spiral if the bead hasn't been well made - but
sometimes these are absent because they have been marvered (rolled across a
flat surface to smooth them out)" Dr Geake. The presence or absence of these features would be looked for in order to try to identify whether this bead had been wound constructed if it was available for further study.

Dr Geake recommends the Sewerby Cemetery report in which Sue Hirst looks at blue glass beads of Early-Medieval date.

National Finds Adviser Sally Worrell commented on the shade of blue of the glass bead, stating that dark blue glass isn't generally used for Iron Age or Roman beads. The dark blue of the bead being recorded in this record might support Dr Leahy & Dr Geake's suggestion of an Early-Medieval date.