Glass Bead

This glass bead is badly eroded but can be identified as coming from the workshops in Venice or Murano (Italy). It falls under the ‘six-layered Venetian herringbone bead’ type, with six hand-polished facets and twelve-pointed stars on the ends. These types were made of six layers of coloured glass including white, blue and red, folded to form zigzag lines around the bead. The ovoid shape became one of the most common shapes, as it was perfectly suited to display the inner star pattern. This type of bead was intended for export to Africa.

This ornament was discovered during archaeological research in Ruwayda, a coastal village in northern Qatar with a fort and a mosque.