Egyptian Glass in Ancient Nordic Graves

A glass bead found in a 3400-year old Nordic grave came from ancient Egypt.

Credit: Roberto Fortuna and Kira Ursem

Around the time that Moses lived, Egyptians and Mesopotamians were engaged in trade with Scandinavian peoples. Discovery of glass beads found in Nordic Bronze Age tombs proves that there were established trade routes between the far north and Levant as early as the 13th century BC.

Twenty-three of the glass beads found in Danish Bronze Age burials by the team of Danish and French archaeologists were blue, a rare color in ancient times.

One of the blue glass beads was found with a Bronze Age woman buried in Olby, Denmark, in a hollowed oak coffin wearing a sun disc. Among the R1b populations, the sun was the symbol of the High God and royal persons.

The analysis showed that the blue beads buried with the women originated from the same glass workshop in Amarna that adorned King Tutankhamun at his funeral in 1323 BC.

This map shows the dispersion of Haplogroup R1b populations. King Tut's Y-DNA has been identified as R1b.

Of special interest is an elaborate glass bead with amber embedding. It
appears to be from the royal workshop that made the blue beads buried with Tutankhamun.

Read more here.

Related reading: Haplogroups of Interest to Biblical Anthropologists; A History of Glass; The Origin of Libyan Desert Glass