338 (31)

311

Beads

206 Red-coral bead waste (1:1)

centrations of waste were found at the BC72 site and in the City Ditch at Ludgate (LUD82).

Identification of the bonę is by James Rackham (Greater London Environmental Archaeology Unit), apart from no. 565, which was identified by P Armitage. While specific identification of the waste pieces and beads has not been possible, it appears probable that the distal shaft of cattle femurs, the shaft of cattle metapodials and poss-ibly the ascending ramus of cattle jaws were being utilised to manufacture the beads. Ali three of these bones would give sufficient area of fiat, thick materiał suitable for the manufacture of beads, but other bones could also be suitable.

Possible unfinished beads

1553    BC72 acc. no. 2256 (context 83) ceramic phase 11

Obiatę spheroid bead(?); 110, d 3.3mm; rounded sides; fiat ends; incised linę on one end, possibly from marking out for drilling the holes or cutting the beads from the błock.

1554    BC72 4240 (88) 11 fig 207

Obiatę spheroid bead(?); 110, d varies from 4 to 7mm; uneven tuming marks remain.

Cf the three waste panels from the same context (nos. 1574-75 & 1578).

1555    A finished, but unstratified oblate-spheroid bead (TL74 acc. no. 2230, d 7mm, 1 7mm bonę, possibly from an ox metapodial shaft, fig 207) can be identified with confidence, though it could be from a la ter period than that considered here (cf a similar example from an early 16th-century context, BC72 acc. no. 3, of bonę -see fig 207). The holes drilled in both these beads - like those in nos. 1553 and 1554 - are of comparably large diameter (both c.2.5mm) with that in no. 1582 of rock crystal. They are larger than the holes in the other excavated beads described here.

1556 BC72 4791A-C (250) 10 Three unfinished pieces - all are knife trimmed at the sides and ends. In contrast with the preceding bonę items and all the recovered panels from which bonę beads were cut, the holes in these are drilled along the grain.

A)    d 6, 1 llmm; both ends cut almost through, then broken; no evidence of tuming (fig 207).

B)    incomplete; d 7+, 1 lOmm; one end cut and broken, tuming has been started at the other end.

C)    as preceding; d 6+, 1 9mm (fig 207).

Presumably A was accidentally lost prior to tuming, while B and C broke at an early stage of that process.

(Amber, jet and coral beads were recovered from the same context.)

Tuming-waste panels

Trimmed, fiat panels of bonę, from which beads have been cut by tuming (cf colour pl 10). MacGregor (1985, 101-02, cf idem 1989, 115) discusses in de taił similar items, which have been found widely in late-medieval and later contexts. Although MacGregor suggests that it may not be possible to decide whether the objects being madę in each case were buttons or beads, the smali diameter holes (up to d c.lOmm) left in relatively thick panels (4.5mm+) by removal of the products seem consistent with the diameters of the two (?)later beads noted above. No con-vincing bonę button seems to have been identified from the medieval period so far. Waste compris-ing panels and unfinished beads, as well as com-plete beads, have been recovered from late 15th/ 16th-century deposits at St Denis in France (Meyer 1979, 2.2.1, illustration reproduced by MacGregor 1989, 118 fig 3).

The following stratified panels are secondary evidence for bonę beads in medieval London in the late 13th and 14th centuries (ceramic phases 9 and 11). Those marked with a star are especial-ly convincing as bead-manufacturing waste in that in each case they retain an almost completed bead. The ones with holes in excess of lOmm in diameter would have produced disc-like rather than spherical objects.