A REVIEW OF BECK’S “CLASSIFICATION” SYSTEM
A recent reading of Horace C. Beck’s landmark work, “Classification and Nomenclature of Beads and Pendants” (Archaeologia (1928) and republished by George Shumway in 1973) leaves this student mostly unimpressed, wondering why this work is so frequently cited by bead researchers.  Its major contribution is an admirable treatment of Form and Decoration as major parameters in describing beads and it illuminates nicely the differences between “classification” and “description”.  Nomenclature applicable to beads is carefully defined, but as a “classification” system, this work falls far short of the mark. A one-page introduction opens with “this paper is written in the hope that it may assist in the description of beads.”  To this end, Beck attempts to “work out a system applicable to the beads of all countries.”  Herein lies the fundamental weakness of this whole work, the implied notion that “description” gives rise to “classification”.  In fact, his “classification” is little more than a shape chart, the text of which consumes forty-seven of seventy-one total pages in the reprint edition. According to Beck, “to describe a bead fully it is necessary to state its form, perforation, color, material, and decoration.”   He ignores Origin and gives minor, but useful, attention to Technique, but one gets the impression from the text that if his five descriptive parameters are determined, a bead’s origin may be determined.  Bead researcher infatuation with Beck’s system seems to be a major deterrent to the evolution of a simple universal classification system. The Bead Classification System (BCS) developed by the National Bead Society takes a different approach that is apparently much more logical.   The BCS arranges beads by Regions (8) and Material (7), yielding fifty-six discrete Groups, some of which may be empty.  These fifty-six Groups contain Subgroups according to “specific material”, such as type of glass, while Families within Groups are determined by “specific origin”, such as town, province, or country, and Technique.  In contrast, Shape is Beck’s first-order classifier, and he mixes Origin, Material, and Technique throughout his system, which only confuses matters. Beck’s Descriptive Parameters Beck divides Material into three groups:  Natural Materials, Metals, and Artificial Materials.  Beck’s four remaining parameters after Material—Form, Perforation, Color, Decoration—are comparable to the two pairs of major descriptors in the BCS:  Size and Shape, and Color and Decoration.  Beck’s greatest contribution is nomenclature, but even in this matter, he fails to generalize fully. Form.  Beck does a fine job providing descriptive nomenclature for bead morphology.  As three-dimensional objects, bead shapes may be described geometrically.  The length L of a bead is defined as the length of the “axis”, the line through the center of the perforation and perpendicular to the transverse section (top or polar view).  This axis becomes the baseline for all further measurements.  A bead is said to be (transversely) symmetrical when the transverse section is symmetrical about the axis.  However, L is not always the most accurate measure of length, particularly for transversely asymmetrical beads, such as the so-called “pendant beads”.  Therefore, it is useful to define “W” as the maximum length of the longitudinal section (side or equatorial view) parallel to the axis. The diameter D is defined as the longest dimension of the transverse section.  The shape of the perimeter of the transverse section determines a bead’s “roundness” or “flatness” and “convexity” or “concavity” and it is useful to define “H” as the longest perpendicular of D in the transverse section.  (Note that in cases where the subject bead is concave, D and H can pass outside of the perimeter.)   Beck defines the major radius Rm as “the maximum distance from the axis to the perimeter when the transverse section is not symmetrical round the axis.”  These lengths and, more specifically, ratios of these lengths, are used to classify three-dimensional bead shapes. The “perfect” bead has L = W = D = H = 2Rm and, in general, is any shape with congruent transverse and longitudinal sections, such as a sphere or a cube, that is the same distance in three dimensions, as long as the transverse section is symmetrical around the axis or perforation. For beads symmetrical about the perforation, as L varies from D, the longitudinal section of the bead changes.  Beck defines “disc” beads as those with L less than 1/3 D, “short” beads as those with L between 1/3 to 0.9 D, “standard” beads as those with L between 0.9 and 1.1 D, and “long” beads as those with L greater than 1.1 D.  However, when W exceeds L, this greater length should be used with respect to D. A bead of any length is transversely symmetrical if the axis passes through the center of all transverse sections.  Every smooth triangular prism is transversely symmetrical if the axis passes through the center of the triangle and, as the number of sides to the perimeter increases, the bead remains symmetrical as long as the axis passes through the centers of all transverse sections.  When the axis does not pass through the centers of the transverse sections, the bead is no longer transversely symmetrical.  The ratio of D to H is a measure of “flatness”.  D is always the greatest transverse dimension, so as H decreases, the bead becomes flatter. A bead may be considered longitudinally symmetrical if the transverse section that bisects the axis divides the bead into two equal parts.  Thus, a cone with an axis parallel to the base is longitudinally symmetrical, while this same cone with an axis from the point to the middle of the base is transversely symmetrical.  In other words, bead symmetry depends upon the location of the axis and even a perfect sphere becomes asymmetrical if the perforation does not pass through the center. Beck’s concept of symmetry is largely limited to the transverse section or “symmetry round the axis”.  We have already noted above that Beck’s (transversely) symmetrical cone is no longer transversely symmetrical when the perforation is moved.  Thus, it would seem more useful to describe a bead’s shape without reference to the perforation, especially among the simple convex three-dimensional shapes, to avoid irrational descriptions such as “asymmetrical sphere” or “asymmetrical cube”.  These latter shapes are better referred to as “sphere with asymmetrical perforation” or “asymmetrically perforated cube” or other language less ambiguous than the direction in which Beck leads us.  Ultimately, Beck’s charts are useful for the nomenclature of Form, but his notions of symmetry leave something to be desired.      We note that Beck’s dimensions, along with those inferred by this student, are based upon the axis or perforation.  Thus, an object without a perforation, such as a marble, cannot be a bead.  Further confusion arises with his use of the word “pendant”, which he called “beads with asymmetrical perforations”.   In fact, true pendants are objects that do not have perforations at all, instead employing devices called “bails” to hang them.  These bails and their perforations are outside of the “pending” object, such that Rm is greater than D, a condition that is not supported by either Beck’s dimensional definitions nor his definition of “bead” as an object with an axis.  “Pendant” is a term that should be restricted to imperforate objects having bails, while objects with asymmetrical perforations should be called “asymmetrical beads”.   Thus, ambiguities may be eliminated.  However, “pendancy” P may be a useful coinage defined as the ratio of Rm to D, the closer to unity the more asymmetrical the perforation.  We may infer “thin” asymmetrical beads (analogous to “long” symmetrical beads) as those with W exceeding H, while “thick” asymmetrical beads (analogous to “disc” or “short” symmetrical beads) as those with H exceeding W.  “Standard” asymmetrical beads would be analogous to “standard” symmetrical beads. Beck has done a very good job formulating the Form parameter, but fell short of unambiguous generalization.  We note that Form is independent of Region (origin), Material, and Technique, so it is not clear how Form can do more for us than contribute to a bead’s description.  Any shape can be made anywhere, of any material, and by a variety of techniques.   Shape is a purely descriptive parameter useful for describing (and sorting) beads, but it is mostly useless as a classifier.   Thus, the breakdown of the Beck “classification” system. Perforation.  As suggested above, bead Form ought to be determined independently from the perforation because, in fact, the perforation only affects the bead’s orientation.  Nevertheless, the perforation is an important diagnostic feature of all beads and, as the perforation becomes large, it begins to influence at least our perceptions of Form. When the perforation is small, it has minimal effect on an object’s apparent shape, but regardless of its characteristics, the perforation determines the axis that forms the baseline for determining Form, at least in Beck’s system.  Not all perforations are simple thin cylinders.  In a little over one page, Beck identifies eleven categories of Perforation, but does not clarify the effects, if any, of Perforation on Form.  If a perforation is not a single, perfectly thin cylinder, it will be bent or curved, have branching channels (e.g., the “Y” perforation), have multiple channels (e.g., the “spacer”), be non- cylindrical (e.g., “cone” shaped), or have any combination of these deviations from standard.  With nonstandard perforations, problems determining L can occur, which is another reason for adopting W as the basic measure of length.   The axis L is the line between the centers of the openings of the perforation and remains the baseline for all other measurements, but parallel to L is W, the maximum dimension of the longitudinal section (side view).   Objects with more than one perforation will have more than one axis.  Such objects could be considered non-beads (e.g., buttons).  Otherwise, it may be appropriate to develop rules or conventions for determining the primary axis L.  Logic suggests that the longest axis of a multi-axis object should be the primary axis, or in the case of multiple axes of equal length, the one that results in the most symmetrical transverse section.  In other cases, it may be readily apparent that one of the axes is intended as the primary functional perforation, regardless of its relative length or transverse section (asymmetrical beads come to mind).  Determining the baseline or axis L of multi-perforated objects may be a judgment call, but as the perforations are entirely within the object, Form is not affected.  According to Beck, a short “disc” bead with a thin perforation is still a short “disc” bead if we widen the perforation, although we might be inclined to call the latter “annular” instead of “disc”.  Beck made some arbitrary size divisions of perforations, the “medium large” perforation being 25 to 50 percent of the diameter and the “extra large” perforation being greater than 50 percent of the diameter. Perforation is fundamental for determining the orientation (symmetry) of the Form.  Perforation is also a stand-alone diagnostic feature, such that its size, shape, technique, and other features should be recorded when describing beads. Color.  Beck devotes about half a page to Color and, while noting the importance of Color in describing beads, fails to provide, for understandable technical reasons, anything useful, such as a color chart.  The simplest bead is one color that may be determined from any of several standardized color charts available to the scientific community and, given such a chart, color becomes one of the easiest descriptive parameters to determine.  Beads of more than one color can be considered decorated beads. Decoration.  Beck does a very good job over some fifteen pages describing different kinds of decorations and his design/pattern nomenclature is extremely valuable.  Sadly, he divides his Decoration discussion according to material, which is perplexing.  He also reserves his discussion of bead-making techniques to his “Artificial Materials” category, implying that certain techniques apply to certain decorations.  In fact, Decoration can be simply divided into two categories, constructional and destructional, which are applicable to all beads of all materials, but we thank Beck for describing so many techniques in detail. Constructional decorations are those that are applied to beads that are built from the perforation outward, such as wound glass beads.  Destructional decorations are those that result from the removal or rearrangement of material, such as etched stone beads or repoussé metal beads.  In some cases, a bead can exhibit both constructional and destructional decorations, such as a seven-layer rosetta bead (constructional) that is subsequently faceted to reveal chevrons (destructional).   Decorations are deviations from the smooth, convex, monochromatic nature of basic beads.  Thus, dimensions are alterable by adding or subtracting material, while patterns and designs of different colors can be added without affecting dimensions.  Beck does an excellent job summarizing techniques for modifying bead surfaces and describing the various designs and patterns that can are found on beads, and we note that much of his nomenclature is still in common use when describing beads. Summary and Conclusions Long ago, Horace Beck made a great contribution to the study of beads, to the extent that he created a detailed shape chart, standardized nomenclature, and focused attention on important descriptive parameters.  As Beck himself admits, this work was written for purposes of “describing” beads, despite its title. The Bead Classification System developed by the National Bead Society can benefit from Beck’s work, particularly Beck’s shape charts with common shape names.  Of use also is Beck’s nomenclature for decorations and the various technical methods that are summarized.  Otherwise, Beck failed to generalize fully several of his parameters, forcing several restatements, as indicated above.  To summarize our observations, we provide the following definitions: Bead        Perforated object with Rm < D.         Short Symmetrical Bead        L shorter than 0.9 D with transverse sections symmetrical around the axis. Standard Symmetrical Bead        L from 0.9 D to 1.1 D with transverse sections symmetrical around the axis. Long Symmetrical Bead        L longer than 1.1 D with transverse sections symmetrical around the axis. We have retained Beck’s length divisions for symmetrical beads, but we reject the “disc” bead notion as too arbitrary. Pendant        Imperforate object with a bail. Thick Asymmetrical Bead        W shorter than 0.9 H with transverse sections asymmetrical around the axis. Standard Asymmetrical Bead        W from 0.9 H to 1.1 H with transverse sections asymmetrical around the axis. Thin Asymmetrical Bead        W longer than 1.1 H with transverse sections asymmetrical around the axis. We have retained Beck’s length divisions for asymmetrical beads, but employ newly defined dimensions appropriate for asymmetrical beads.  The term “pendant” is now reserved for true pendants. Pendancy (P)        The ratio of Rm to D.  Equals 0.5 for transversely symmetrical beads and approaches 1.0 as transverse asymmetry increases. Decoration        Any profile deviations or colored designs and patterns created on a smooth monochrome bead. Constructional Decoration        Decorations added during the process of building a bead outward from the perforation. Destructional Decoration        Decorations that result from the removal or rearrangement of materials Much of Beck’s descriptive work should be incorporated into the BCS, particularly his Form, Perforation, and Decoration nomenclature, as well as his technical terminology.  Sadly, his attempt at “classification” is largely a failure, although he does a great job of “description”.