Distant Beads These two cobalt-blue glass beads found in a 3,400-year-old grave in Denmark were brought from ancient Egypt and may have travelled there via vast European trade routes, according to a new study.
A new study has found that Bronze Age nobility in what is now Denmark wore brightly coloured glass beads made in the workshops of Egyptian pharaohs and Mesopotamian rulers.
Janet Wallberg, an archaeologist at the Højbjerg Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, and her colleagues said that trade routes connected Egypt, Mesopotamia and Denmark as early as 3,400 years ago and continued until at least 3,100 years ago. Chemical analysis of blue beads previously found in Bronze Age tombs in Denmark showed that the ornaments originated in the glass workshops of Egyptian pharaohs and rulers of the Fertile Crescent, the researchers reported in the Journal of Archaeology on Dec. 13.
”This is the first evidence of ancient Egyptian glass outside the Mediterranean,” Warberg said, adding that Mesopotamian glass was previously known to reach as far north as France.
Catherine Bard, an archaeologist at Boston University who was not involved in the new study, says glass beads from Egypt and Mesopotamia likely reached societies as far south as Scandinavia, more than 5,000 kilometers away, through vast maritime and overland trade networks.
Chemical analysis has shown that the bead, which has eyes inlaid with yellow and white glass, was made in Mesopotamia. It was found in a 3,400-year-old Danish tomb.
Varberg’s team believes the Norsemen traded amber for high-quality glassware. Baltic amber, mined off the coast of Denmark and neighboring countries, is known to have been brought to central Europe and the Mediterranean more than 3,000 years ago. Varberg said Baltic amber was used to make a lion-shaped bowl found in Syria at the time, as well as beads and scarabs found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in Egypt.
Additionally, in 1982, a 3,300-year-old shipwreck was discovered off the coast of Turkey containing a cargo of luxury goods, including Baltic amber beads and glassware, suggesting that these goods were transported along common trade routes.
Thilo Rehren, a metallurgical archaeologist at University College London in Doha, Qatar, said bright blue glass beads like those found in the Danish tombs “make sense” because they could have been exchanged for Baltic amber. “These new findings show that the globalisation of trade is not a modern invention.”
Wahlberg’s team analyzed 23 glass beads from 10 Danish Bronze Age tombs in the collection of the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. They used a microscopic laser beam to blast tiny pits into the beads’ surfaces, producing a chemical signature that allowed another device to identify the material’s molecular structure. The results were compared with the chemical signatures of 10 ancient Egyptian glass fragments that Wahlberg’s team had studied, as well as the chemical signatures of Mesopotamian glassware that other researchers had previously assessed using laser technology.
The two Danish beads are made of Egyptian cobalt blue glass. The cobalt in these finds contains elements such as nickel, zinc and manganese, which are often found in cobalt-coloured glass objects and fragments found in ancient Egyptian workshops. One of the beads was discovered in a woman’s tomb around 3,400 years ago and was surrounded by a number of bronze ornaments. The glass bead and two amber beads were found near the woman’s right shoulder. Another Egyptian bead was also found in the woman’s tomb.
The surviving beads show the distinctive features of Mesopotamian glass, including relatively high concentrations of copper and blue cobalt, with characteristic levels of nickel, zinc and manganese. Most Mesopotamian beads also come from female burials.
Amber and glass objects have been found in many Bronze Age tombs across Europe, and Varberg suggests that the new evidence suggests that the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians – in particular the idea of yellow (in amber) as a symbol of the power of the sun and blue (in glass beads) as a symbol of the ocean that created the sun and life – may have influenced the people of southern Scandinavia.
Post time: Jun-18-2025