Immortal Maidens: The Visual Significance of the Colour White in Girls’ Graves on Viking-Age Gotland

Via Medievalists.net:

"In some Viking-Age (AD 800-1050) burials on Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea, a large number of white shell-beads have been recovered together with glass-beads predominantly coloured yellow, green, red, blue and turquoise as well as beads of exotic materials such as carnelian and rock crystal. The beads were part of bead-sets from necklaces worn by females. Previous research assumed that the shell-beads were made of local limestone, but analyses have revealed that the beads were actually crafted from the exotic cowry shell (cypraea pantherina), originating in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea." Read the full article by Susanne Thedéen in a PDF edition of Making Sense of Things: Archaelogies of Sense Perception, pp 103-120.