An Archaeological Approach to Understanding the Meaning of Beads Using the Example of Korean National Treasure 634, A Bead from a 5th/6th-Century Royal Silla Tomb

An ancient bead is a document from the past—a message in a bottle—written in some lost symbolic language. Archaeologists try to understand that language by integrating scientific and technological approaches with the social, economic, political, and symbolic/ religious context in which the bead was found. As an example, we use Korean National Treasure 634 (NT634), a dark blue glass bead adorned with mosaic decorations of a bird, a flowering tree, and a human face, found in a 5th-6th century Korean tomb. This bead suggests its meaning by how and where it was made, and what its images may represent