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Early Bronze Age faience bead

One of two faience beads found with a cremation burial in a stone cist under a large burial mound. Both beads are ‘segmented’ types and are made from faience - a blue, glass-like material made by firing a mixture of sand, water, plant ash and copper. The pale, powdery surfaces suggest that they were burnt with the body on the funeral pyre. They may have been part of a necklace that included other beads perhaps made from amber, gold, jet or bone that either did not survive the flames or weren’t picked up by the finders.

Un o ddau lain faience a ddarganfuwyd gyda chorfflosgiad mewn cist garreg o dan domen gladdu fawr. Mae’r ddau lain wedi’u ‘segmentu’ ac wedi’u gwneud o faience – deunydd glas tebyg i wydr a wnaed trwy danio cymysgedd o dywod, dŵr, lludw pren a chopr. Mae’r arwynebau golau, powdraidd yn awgrymu eu bod wedi cael eu llosgi gyda’r corff ar y goelcerth angladdol. Efallai y buont yn rhan o fwclis a oedd yn cynnwys gleiniau eraill a wnaed o ambr, aur, muchudd neu asgwrn nad oeddent wedi goroesi’r fflamau neu nad oedd y darganfyddwyr wedi sylwi arnynt.