HISTORY OF BEADS

• Beads have been made of glass for over

5,000 years.
• The discovery of fire was the essential step
in glass bead making.
• There is evidence as early as 2340-2180 BC
in Mesopotamia of a method known as
"core-forming" where they used a metal
mandrel with pieces of glass held over a
flame.
• The word bead comes from an Old English
word—gebed, or bede—which means
Beads
• one of the earliest forms of trade between the
human race.
• It is thought that is because of bead trading that
humans developed language.[7]
• have been used and traded for most of our
history.
• The oldest beads found to date were at ksar Akil,
in Lebanon.[8]
• Prior to this find, the beads found in the
Blombos cave were the oldest at about 72,000
years old.
bead
• is a small, decorative object that is
formed in a variety of shapes and sizes
of a material such as stone, bone, shell,
glass, plastic, wood or pearl and with a
small hole for threading or stringing.
• Beads range in size from under 1
millimetre (0.039 in) to over 1
centimetre (0.39 in) in diameter.
 Who invented the beads?

Known as Indian beads, they were

originally sewn together to form ribbons.
The pegboard for bead designs was
invented in the early 1960s (patented
1962, patent granted 1967) by Gunnar
Knutsson in Vällingby, Sweden, as a
therapy for elderly homes; the pegboard
later gained popularity as a toy for
children.
• A pair of beads made from nassarius
sea snail shells, approximately 100,000
years old, are thought to be the earliest
known examples of jewellery.
Beadwork
is the art or craft of making things
with beads.
• Beads can be woven together with
specialized thread, strung onto thread
or soft, flexible wire, or adhered to a
surface (e.g. fabric, clay).
Symbolic meaning of beads
In many parts of the world, beads are used for
symbolic purposes, for example:
• use for prayer or devotion - e.g. rosary
beads for Roman Catholics, misbaha for
Muslims
• use for anti-tension devices, e.g. worry
beads
• use as currency e.g. aggrev beads from
Ghana
• use for gaming e.g. owari beads for mankala
Greek komboloi beads as in Crete
 What is beading used for?
Beadwork
• is the art or craft of attaching beads to
one another by stringing them with a
sewing needle or beading needle and
thread or thin wire, or sewing them to
cloth. ...
• Beads are used to create jewellery or
other articles of personal adornment;
they are also used in wall hangings and
sculpture and many other artworks.
 What is the use of beads?

Uses of Beads.
• Beads may be strung together to form a
necklace or a rosary—a string of beads
used for counting prayers.
• The word bead is derived from an old
Germanic word meaning “to pray.” In
medieval England people used their
rosaries to count bedes, or prayers
 Components
• Beads can be made of many different materials.
• The earliest beads were made of a variety of
natural materials which, after they were gathered,
could be readily drilled and shaped.
• As humans became capable of obtaining and
working with more difficult materials, those
materials were added to the range of available
substances. But nowadays synthetic materials were
added.
 In modern manufacturing, the most common bead
materials are wood, plastic, glass, metal, and
stone.
 Types of beads
Beads can be divided into several types of
overlapping categories based on different criteria
such as:
• the materials from which they are made,
• the process used in their manufacturing,
• the place or period of origin,
• the patterns on their surface, or
• their general shape. In some cases, such as
millefiori and cloisonné beads, multiple categories
may overlap in an interdependent fashion.
Cloisonné beads
 Specialized glass techniques and types

Dichroic beads (10 millimetres (0.39 in))

Furnace glass beads
Natural materials
Beads are still made from many naturally
occurring materials, both
• organic (i.e., of animal- or plant-based
origin) and
• inorganic (purely mineral origin).
However, some of these materials now
routinely undergo some extra
processing beyond mere shaping and
drilling such as color enhancement via
dyes or irradiation.
The natural organics include
• bone, coral, horn, ivory, seeds (such as
tagua nuts), animal shell, and wood. For
most of human history pearls were the
ultimate precious beads of natural origin
because of their rarity; the modern
pearl-culturing process has made them
far more common
The natural inorganics include various
types of stones, ranging from gemstones to
common minerals, and metals. Of the
latter, only a few precious metals occur in
pure forms, but other purified base metals
may as well be placed in this category
along with certain naturally occurring
alloys such as electrum. There are also
paper beads.
ceramics: pottery and glass
 The oldest-surviving synthetic materials
used for beadmaking.
 Beads were also made from ancient
alloys such as bronze and brass, but as
those were more vulnerable to
oxidation they have generally been less
well-preserved at archaeological sites.
Synthetic materials

Swarovski crystal beads (6 mm–8 mm),

pendant 3 cm
Swedish patent 217875: The plastic bead pegboard (1962).

Fusible plastic beads

A red and white heart made of plastic
Perler or fusion beads.
Potato Hair pipe beads
• Elk rib bones were the original material
for the long, tubular hair pipe beads.[5]
Today these beads are commonly made
of bison and water buffalo bones and
are popular for breastplates and chokers
among Plain Indians Black variations of
these beads are made from the animals'
horns.
Seed bead
• Seed beads are uniformly shaped
spheroidal or tube shaped beads
ranging in size from under a millimetre
to several millimetres. "Seed bead" is a
generic term for any small bead. Usually
rounded in shape, seed beads are most
commonly used for loom and off-loom
bead weaving
• may be antique beads that were
manufactured in Europe and used for trade
during the colonial period, such as chevron
beads; or they may have been made in West
Africa by and for Africans, such as
Mauritanian Kiffa beads, Ghanaian and
Nigerian powder glass beads, or African-
made brass beads.
Austrian crystal
• is a generic term for cut lead-crystal beads,
based on the location and prestige of the
Swarovski firm.
Czech glass beads
• are made in the Czech Republic, in
particular an area called Jablonec nad
Nisou Production of glass beads in the
area dates back to the 14th century,
though production was depressed under
communist rule. Because of this long
tradition, their workmanship and quality
has an excellent reputation.
 Vintage beads

• in the collectibles and antique market,

refers to items that are at least 25 or
more years old.
• Vintage beads are available in materials
that include lucite, plastic, crystal, metal
and glass.
 Miscellaneous ethnic beads

Tibetan Dzi beads and Rudraksha beads

• are used to make Buddhist and Hindu
rosaries (malas).
Magatama
• are traditional Japanese beads, and
cinnabar was often used for making
beads in China.
Wampum
• are cylindrical white or purple beads made
from quahog or North Atlantic channeled
whelk shells by northeastern Native
American tribes, such as the Wampanoag
and Shinnecock
Job's tears
are seed beads popular among
southeastern Native American tribes.
Heishe
are beads made of shells or stones by the
Kewa Pueblo peopleof New Mexico.
In 2005, Munkplast/Nabbi
• introduced the Photo Pearls software
that converts digital photos to bead
designs.
• Hama come in three sizes: mini
(diameter 2.5 mm), midi (5 mm) and
maxi (10 mm).
• Perler beads come in two sizes called
classic (5 mm) and biggie (10 mm).
• Pyssla beads (by IKEA) only come in one
size (5 mm).
Shapes
Round
This is the most common shape of beads
that are strung on wire to create necklaces,
and bracelets. The shape of the round
beads lay together and are pleasing to the
eye. Rounds beads can be made of glass,
stone, ceramic, metal, or wood.
Square or Cubed
Square beads can be to enhance a necklace
design as a spacer however a necklace can
be strung with just square beads. The
necklaces with square beads are used in
Rosary necklaces/prayer necklaces, and
wooden or shell ones are made for
beachwear.
Oval
Tube
Surface
patterns
After shaping, glass and crystal beads can
have their surface appearance enhanced
by etching a translucent frosted layer,
applying an additional colour layer, or both.
Aurora Borealis, or AB
• is a surface coating that diffuses light
into a rainbow. Other surface coatings
are vitrail, moonlight, dorado, satin,
star shine, and heliotrope.
Faux beads
• are beads that are made to look like a
more expensive original material,
especially in the case of fake pearls and
simulated rocks, minerals and
gemstones. Precious metals and ivory
are also imitated.
Fusible beads come in many colors and
degrees of transparency/opacity, including
varieties that glow in the dark or have
internal glitter; peg boards come in various
shapes and several geometric patterns.
Plastic toy beads, made by chopping plastic
tubes into short pieces, were introduced in
1958 by Munkplast AB in Munka-Ljungby,
Sweden, under the brand Nabbi.
There are also several ways to fuse many
small glass canes together into a
multicolored pattern, resulting in millefiori
beads or chevron beads (sometimes called
"trade beads"). "Furnace glass" beads
encase a multicolored core in a transparent
exterior layer which is then annealed in a
furnace.
Murano beads
 are intricate glass beads influenced by
Venetian glass artists.
Since 1291,
• Murano glassmakers have refined
technologies for producing beads and
glasswork such as crystalline glass,
enamelled glass (smalto), glass with threads
of gold (aventurine), multicolored glass
(millefiori), milk glass (lattimo) and imitation
gemstones made of glass.
 BEADING
TECHNIQUES
Bead crochet
• is a crochet technique that incorporates
beads into a crochet fabric. The technique is
used to produce decorative effects in
women's fashion accessories.
• The word "crochet" is derived from the
French "croche" or "croc" meaning "to
hook".[1] Published descriptions of bead
crochet date from around 1824 although it
was probably common before then.[2] At one
time, bead crochet was thought by some
people to be appropriate only for rich people