Introduction
The Bead Study Trust aims to continue the pioneering research of Horace C. Beck (1873-1941). He was known to his contemporaries earlier in the century as "The Bead Man". He initiated the use of optical microscopy for the study of ancient beads from such famous archaeological sites as Ur, Nineveh and Taxila. He also developed the first basic system of classification and his research remains fundamental to this day. The Beck Collection is now stored at University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge.
Horace C. Beck 'The Bead Man' (1873-1941)
Beck's Microscopes
Few people realise why Horace Beck was interested in beads, especially glass ones, or where he got his background knowledge of glass from. The reason is that he was a Beck of Beck’s microscopes.
Horace Beck was born in 1873 as the youngest son of a large Quaker family and on leaving school joined the family firm of R. & J. Beck, optical instrument makers, at 68 Cornhill, London. This firm has an interesting history which probably exerted a strong influence on Beck.
In the early 19th century, a lot of experimentation was taking place in lens design for microscopes, for it was realised that improved lenses were fundamental to the better microscopes which were urgently needed for scientific research.
A wine merchant in the City of London called Joseph Jackson Lister (1786-1869), (whose son became Lord Lister, the discoverer of antiseptics), was one of the leading innovators. His paper on lens design, published by the Royal Society in 1830, meant that the good quality compound microscope, which scientific research so urgently needed was now possible. His was the first scientifically based design for microscope lenses. J. J. Lister asked a mathematical instrument maker called James Smith to make a microscope to suit his new lenses and as more amd more people wanted decent microscopes Smith set up in business making microscopes with lenses of Lister’s design. Lister apprenticed his nephew Richard Beck to Smith, and when Richard became a partner in 1847 the firm became Smith & Beck. Joseph Beck, Richard’s brother and Horace Beck’s father joined the firm in 1851, having been apprenticed to Troughton and Simms, the foremost scientific instrument makers of the day. In 1868 James Smith retired and the name changed to R. & J. Beck. This was the firm which Horace Beck joined when he left school. Here he became interested in lens design and by the time he, in his turn, became a partner he was designing microscope lenses of high quality.
Horace Beck "The Bead Man"
It was his knowledge of, and interest in, glass which eventually led him to study the history of glass and glass beads, later extended to all beads. He had always had antiquarian interests, ranging from fossils as a schoolboy to Old Master drawings which he used to buy cheaply in Caledonian Road as a young man, so he decided that, on his retirement he would specialise in glass beads. Unfortunately his health deteriorated and in 1923, at the age of 51, he left the firm and moved to a decidedly primitive cottage in the countryside.
He set up a laboratory in the old dairy, where he not only examined beads using a microscope and illuminator of his own design, but he measured their hardness and specific gravity and made thin sections to identify materials, for not all beads are made of glass. His daughter Flora took reference photographs using a ¬ plate camera-back on the microscope and a burning strip of magnesium held in a pair of pliers, and developed the negatives using a lantern with red glass with a candle inside as a safe light. These glass negatives and his records are part of the Beck Collection.
Within three years his studies had progressed so far that in 1926 he was invited to read a paper to the Society of Antiquaries of London on bead classification and nomenclature. This was published in Archaeologia in 1928, occupying 76 quarto pages and it established Beck’s reputation as “the bead man”.
This system covers Shape, called classification, Perforation, Colour, Material and Decoration. The big ommission was technique of manufacture, which he covered in his paper, but did not consider necessary to bead description.
Beck was already communicating with archaeologists such as Flinders Petrie, and those connected with archaeology can understand his heartfelt plea at the beginning of this paper; “This paper is written in the hope that it may assist in getting more uniformity in the description of beads”.
Beck’s definitions of bead terms are still considered standard by many authorities and his articles remain the starting point for many areas of bead studies. As well as this seminal paper, he wrote about 35 reports and was the direct inspiration of about another 15. For example, he gave impetus to the study of the so-called etched or bleached cornelian beads, inspiring Ernest Mackay to write articles on this and other aspects of beads including the well-known article in Man where Mackay watched an Indian make white designs on a piece of orange cornelian while describing the process.
After Beck died there was a shift in emphasis in bead studies. Whereas Beck’s interest had been world-wide, bead researchers now tended to concentrate on the beads of particular areas. When Beck died in 1941 his collection was packed up for the duration of World War II and later given to the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, where it can be seen by appointment.
The Beck Collection
What is the collection like? It is a vast accumulation rather than a planned collection. It consists of beads which Beck acquired for himself, beads he was given, and beads from the excavations he reported on, some of which he was allowed to keep instead of payment. The collection thus contains material from Harappa and Hal Tarxien, to name only two well-known sites. He was also sent beads of all types by friends and explorers living or travelling abroad so that there is much modern material, both native and imported, in the collection, especially from the Far East and Africa.
The collection consists of beads, amulets, pendants etc; a card index with a card for each group of beads; Beck’s microscope slides of thin sections; a large number of glass negatives; and 23 boxes of papers. Of these boxes, 15 contain off-prints, but 8 contain documents to do with the collection, including notes and drawings of the collection classified in different ways. How useful Beck would have found a computerised database! There is also a binder containing more than 600 photographs of beads, another giving details of their subject, magnification etc, and a final volume listing sketches and microscope slides which contains an index. These are kept in the Museum Archive.
Judging by the catalogue cards, there appear to be upwards of 2600 groups of beads and other objects and as one number may cover 200 beads, the size of the collection is considerable. In addition to beads, there are about forty cylinder seals in the collection, virtually all unprovenanced, and over thirty stamp seals in the ‘Persian’ drawer. There are also a number of ‘faience’ scarabs, mostly unprovenanced to site but attributed to country. Stored with the Beck collection are about fifty more stamp and cylinder seals, but their registration numbers are different, and they may be part of the main museum collection.