Research Links
This website aims to promote beadwork analysis in archaeology and hopes to inform both specialists and people otherwise interested in the subject.
Bead Collectors Helping Bead Collectors
This Facebook page has thousands of members. You can post images of beads for identification or you may provide information.
Bead Collector Network
An on-line collectible bead discussion forum contributed to and used by collectors and researchers all over the world and offering links to various articles and web sites discussing the history of beads.
Discussion group for bead researchers, archaeologists, beadmakers, and anyone with an educational interest in beads.
The British Museum
The British Museum in London, England, houses a large collection of beads and beadwork from around the world, prehistoric to modern.
Munsell Bead Color Book
With over 170 of the colors most common in beads found in archaeological sites and used on ethnological specimens of beadwork, this portable guide will help in the writing of reports on beads and beadwork.
Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
The collections of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic, contain thousands of ornaments including beads, pendants, sample cards, and various categories of jewelry. Unfortunately, only a few of the items are shown on the website.
NativeWeb — The site is currently under rebuild, but may be available again in the future.
NativeWeb posts numerous pages discussing beads and pendants, bead weaving techniques, wampum, and an introduction to the use of glass beads among Native Americans of the northeastern United States.
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology The Xia Nai Index of Egyptian Beads
There are some 3000 strings of beads in the Petrie Museum. These formed the subject of a dissertation in the 1940s by Xia Nai, one of China’s leading archaeologists and pioneers after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Xia Nai’s dissertation was only published in 2014 and to ensure that the research that underpinned this was also available, scans of Xia Nai’s 1,760 index cards held in the Petrie Museum archives were made.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art include beads, beadwork, beaded adornments, dresses, and other items from various contexts.
Picard Trade Bead Museum
Online exhibitions illustrating beads from various countries and commercial bead cards. Very informative.
Pitt Rivers Museum Databases
The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, holds a sizable collection of beads and beadwork from various cultures, as well as bead sample cards.
J.F. Sick and Co. trade bead sample card collection
This collection was the subject of Koos Van Brakel’s 2006 book, The Bead Goes On: The Sample Card Collection with Trade Beads from the Company J.F. Sick & Co. in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam. KIT, Amsterdam.
Clicking on the link takes you to the database Welcome page of the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. Enter the term fantasiekralen into the search area to see the sample cards.
Stephen A. Frost Trade Bead Collection, Illinois State Museum
A collection of 71 sample cards used by the firm of Stephen A. Frost & Son ca. 1848-1937, which depict a wide variety of Venetian and Bohemian glass beads including numerous fancy lamp-wound beads.
TheBeadSite.com
Created by the late Peter Francis, Jr., as the outreach arm of his Center for Bead Research, supporters rebuilt this website which is now an archived source. The publications of the center are available for viewing here.
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
The museum’s collections contain thousands of beads, as well as beadwork and items adorned with beads.
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
The Bead Timeline created by the Bead Society of Greater Washington was donated to the Peabody in 2008, and is currently being integrated into the museum’s Division of Anthropology and cataloged in the Peabody Museum’s data base. In the future they hope to exhibit the Timeline or portions of it. In the interim, images of portions of the collection are posted in this gallery.