Mycenaean beads: Gender and social contexts

Abstract

Although Mycenaean burial customs and the absence of written sources make many questions about beads unanswerable, nonetheless there is some evidence, or room for speculation, about who wore beads, how they were worn, uses other than as jewellery, relations to seals and amulets and spindle whorls and textiles, their materials and sources and their part in long-distance and other cultural contacts, colours and the possible significance of them, manufacturing processes and craft organization, symbolic values of relief-bead motifs, beads as rank- or status-markers. Gender roles and differences are sometimes hinted at in the archaeological record. Written sources from Egypt and Mesopotamia and archaeological and ethnographic studies in India can sometimes help to fill gaps by suggesting questions or answers.