3,400-year-old Beads Found in Nordic Graves Made by King Tut's Glassmaker - Archaeology - Haaretz - Israeli News Source Haaretz.com

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.707620

Beads Found in 3,400-year-old Nordic Graves Were Made by King Tut's Glassmaker

Cobalt glass beads found in Scandinavian Bronze Age tombs reveals trade connections between Egyptian and Mesopotamia 3400 years ago - and similar religious rituals.

Philippe Bohstrom

Mar 08, 2016 3:55 PM

An elaborate glass bead with amber embedding found in a 3400-year old Danish grave turns out to have come from ancient Egypt. Roberto Fortuna and Kira Ursem

Stunning glass beads found in Danish Bronze Age burials dating to 3400 years ago turn out to have come from ancient Egypt – in fact, from the workshop that made the blue beads buried with the famous boy-king Tutankhamun. The discovery proves that there were established trade routes between the far north and Levant as early as the 13th century BCE.

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.

“Lapis lazuli was the most precious gemstone in Nordic Late Bronze Age. Blue glass was the next best thing," Jeanette Varberg, who is associated with the research, told Haaretz. "In the north it must have been almost magic. A piece of heaven." (Lapis lazuli is a deep blue semi-precious gemstone.)