via Danish Bronze Age glass beads traced to Egypt | ScienceNordic.

December 8, 2014

Analyses of glass beads found in Denmark give us new knowledge of Bronze Age trade routes.

By: Jeanette Varberg, Aarhus University, Flemming Kaul, National Museum of Denmark, Bernard Gratuze, Université dOrléans

The women from the Ølby site. The site was excavated in 1880 by Sophus Müller. Next to the woman’s left arm was a blue glass bead (from Egypt), two amber beads, and two small bronze spirals.

An international collaboration between Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus, the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, and Institut de Recherche sur les Archéomatériaux (IRAMAT) at Orléans, France, has resulted in a sensational discovery about the trade routes between Denmark and the ancient civilisations in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the Bronze Age 3,400 years ago. The discovery also gives us new knowledge about the sun cult in the Nordic…