Beads & Beadwork

Beaded necklaces from the 6th to the 10th century.

The idea for this project came from a picture I saw of a diadem from Khokhlach Burial Mound, which currently resides at the Hermitage Museum in the former Soviet Union. The diadem, which dates to the first century CE, has deer processing to the tree of life around the upper edge. The trees have little gold leaves that move like charms on a bracelet and, having seen it the first time, my thought was it would look great done in beads. And so I started a quest to see if there were similar head ornaments in Medieval Europe, and if so, what they looked like in comparison.

Describes the construction of a floral beaded circlet, based on medieval chaplets.

A list of extant beadworked items in chronological order, with a lengthy description of the difficulties in researching beadwork.

Tons of research and documentation and pictures on period beadwork. More extant pieces than pantings, so lots of solid documentation. Also has a extensive how-to section.

Research for a miniature beaded garden similar to descriptions of historical examples.

An ongoing site with articles and links on Glasswork and Beads as they apply to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

Of all the applications of beadwork, the flowers captivated me the most. The main focus of my research has been the history of beaded flowers.

I have been doing beadwork for almost all my life. In the past few years I have also been doing research into the historical aspects of beadwork prior to 1600. For the most part, my research has centered on European beadwork dating from 1000 to 1600ce. For the past four years I have focused on documenting beaded flowers. I have written several papers to document specific items I have made for A&S competitions in the SCA.