Glass, bead

Blue glass melon bead found in the grave of a wealthy London woman, buried at Covent Garden. She was buried with some silver rings, glass beads and a fine gold and garnet brooch (FLR00[1197]<36>). They were probably in a bag round her neck. This bead is a sub-melon bead variety with five irregularly spaced and crudely formed lobes. It is made from opaque blue-green glass and has a barrel-shaped profile (Guido type 5v).
Floral Street, Covent Garden, is in the heart of Lundenwic, the early Saxon town of London. In August 2000, archaeologists from AOC Archaeology Group excavating there uncovered a number of graves. One grave contained the skeleton of a woman with an ornate brooch, made of copper decorated with gold plates and gold wire and set with a mosaic of polished garnets. The brooch was probably inside a bag around her neck, which also contained silver rings and glass beads. Fewer than 20 brooches of this type have ever been found. They were fashionable among aristocratic Anglo-Saxon ladies, particularly in Kent, in the 600s, suggesting that the woman in the grave was of noble, possibly even royal, birth.