File:Early Medieval bead (FindID 611910).jpg

English: Translucent blue-green glass bead with an opaque white-yellow trail, probably Late Iron Age to early Roman in date of Guido (1978) Class 11. The bead is slightly oval in plan, barrel shaped in profile with flat ends and convex curved sides. It has a square hole through the centre, distinctly larger at one side than the other (5.5 by 5mm compared to 4 by 3.6mm). It is a pale translucent green-blue colour. A trail of white-yellow opaque glass has been laid on the outside in a series of broad U shaped loops and then combed with a line drawn around the centre of the side creating a rounded M shape. The trial has been marvelled flat but in places the opaque glass has not adhered well to the glass underneath and is coming away. The central hole is slightly off centre and the thickness is irregular. It is 14.5mm by 13.5mm externally and 7.7mm thick, it weighs 1.90 grams.

Colourless glass beads with yellow opaque decoration were found, and produced, at the lake villages of Meare (Coles 1987) and Glastonbury, dating to the late Iron Age (300-1 BC). The blue green base of the bead and the exact form of the decoration in not paralleled at Meare East (Coles ibid:81-5). An example with a 'herringbone' design' although lacking the central line is known from Meare West (Grey 1966::289, no.G14) where plain translucent blue-green glass beads were also found (ibid:290). The square central hole may also suggest a different production technique and therefore source.