The Hunterston Brooch is a highly important

Celtic brooch The Celtic brooch, more properly called the penannular brooch, and its closely related type, the pseudo-penannular brooch, are types of brooch clothes fasteners, often rather large; penannular means formed as an incomplete ring. They are especial ...

of "pseudo-penannular" type found near

Hunterston Hunterston, by the Firth of Clyde, is a coastal area in Ayrshire, Scotland. It is the seat and estate of the Hunter family. As an area of flat land adjacent to deep natural water, it has been the site of considerable actual and proposed industri ...

North Ayrshire North Ayrshire (, ) is one of 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas in Scotland. The council area borders Inverclyde to the north, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire to the northeast, and East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire to the east and s ...

, Scotland, in either, according to one account, 1826 by two men from

West Kilbride West Kilbride () is a village and historic parish in North Ayrshire, Scotland, on the west coast by the Firth of Clyde, looking across the Firth of Clyde to Goat Fell and the Isle of Arran. West Kilbride and adjoining districts of Seamill and P ...

, who were digging drains at the foot of Goldenberry Hill,Lamb, page 92 or in 1830. It is now in the

National Museum of Scotland The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a museum of Scottish history and culture. It was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. Made within a few decades of 700 AD,NMS the Hunterston Brooch is cast in silver, gilt, and set with pieces of

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...

(most now missing), and decorated with

interlaced Interlaced video (also known as interlaced scan) is a technique for doubling the perceived frame rate of a video display without consuming extra bandwidth. The interlaced signal contains two fields of a video frame captured consecutively. Th ...

animal bodies in gold

filigree Filigree (also less commonly spelled ''filagree'', and formerly written ''filigrann'' or ''filigrene'') is a form of intricate metalwork used in jewellery and other small forms of metalwork. In jewellery, it is usually of gold and silver, m ...

. The diameter of the ring is 12.2 cm, and in its centre there is a cross and a golden glory representing the risen

Christ Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...

, surrounded by tiny bird heads. The pin, which is broken, can travel freely around the ring as far as the terminals, which was necessary for fastening; it is now 13.1 cm long, but was probably originally 15 cm or more.Youngs, 91 The back of the brooch has a scratched inscription in

rune Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see '' futhark'' vs ''runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were primarily used to represent a sound value (a ...

s in the

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

language, probably 10th century, "Melbrigda owns this brooch"; Maél Brigda, "devotee of Bridgit" is a common Gaelic female name, though seen as male by other sources.Moss (2014), p. 414 Much later ownership inscriptions are not uncommon on elaborate Celtic brooches, often from Norse-Gael contexts. The Hunterston Brooch is clearly an object of very high status, indicating its owner's power and prestige. With the

Tara Brooch The Tara Brooch is an Irish Celtic brooch, dated to the late 7th or early 8th century. It is of the pseudo-penannular type (with a fully closed head or hoop), and made from bronze, silver and gold. Its head consists of an intricately decorated ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

and the Londesborough Brooch in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, it is considered one of the finest of over 50 highly elaborate surviving Irish Celtic brooches, and "arguably the earliest of the ornate penannular brooches from Britain and Ireland".

Possible origin

The Hunterston brooch may have been made at a royal site, such as

Dunadd Dunadd (Scottish Gaelic ''Dún Ad'', "fort on the iverAdd", Old Irish ''Dún Att'') is a hillfort in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, dating from the Iron Age and early medieval period and is believed to be the capital of the ancient kingdom of Dál R ...

Argyll Argyll (; archaically Argyle; , ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a Shires of Scotland, historic county and registration county of western Scotland. The county ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975 and most of the area ...

, though is more likely to have been made in Ireland, especially as its pseudo-penannular form is typical of Irish brooches, whereas the truly penannular form remained usual in Pictish brooches. On the other hand, its style is closely comparable to a terminal fragment of a

penannular brooch The Celtic brooch, more properly called the penannular brooch, and its closely related type, the pseudo-penannular brooch, are types of brooch clothes fasteners, often rather large; penannular means formed as an incomplete ring. They are especial ...

found in

Dunbeath Dunbeath () is a village in south-east Caithness, Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the nort ...

in 1860 which probably was made in Scotland; craftsmen may have travelled across the area using the locally popular forms. Lloyd and Jennifer Laing feel it was probably made in Dalriada, and the Museum of Scotland say "The style of the brooch has Irish parallels, while the filigree resembles metalwork from England. The brooch was probably made in western Scotland where the two traditions were joined, or perhaps in Ireland by a craftsman trained in foreign techniques."Laings, 148
NMS database
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Construction

The brooch has a complex construction typical of the most elaborate Irish brooches. Panels of filigree work were created separately on gold trays, which were then fitted into the main silver-gilt body. On the reverse, four panels of silver-gilt were also inserted; as in other examples like the

the decoration on the reverse uses older curvilinear "Celtic" motifs looking back to La Tène style Insular Celtic decoration, though on the Hunterston Brooch such motifs also appear on the front. The brooch was worn by rulers or gifted from the ruler to people of importance. The Hunterston brooch showed power and wealth in the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

Notes

References

* Henderson, George; Henderson, Isabel. ''The Art of the Picts: Sculpture and Metalwork in Early Medieval Scotland''. Thames and Hudson, 2004. * Lamb, Rev. John, BD. ''Annals of an Ayrshire Parish - West Kilbride''. Glasgow: John J. Rae, 1896 *"Laings", Lloyd Laing and Jennifer Laing. ''Art of the Celts: From 700 BC to the Celtic Revival'', 1992, Thames & Hudson (World of Art), * Moss, Rachel. ''

Medieval c. 400—c. 1600 __NOTOC__ ''Medieval c. 400—c. 1600: Art and architecture of Ireland'' is a 2014 survey book partly written, compiled and edited by the Irish art historian Rachel Moss.Art and Architecture of Ireland Art and Architecture of Ireland is a series of five books commissioned the Royal Irish Academy and University College Dublin, under the general editorship of the art historian Andrew Carpenter. The series is published by the UK branch of Yale Unive ...

" series. London: Yale University Press, 2014. *"NMS"
Hunterston Brooch

National Museums of Scotland National Museums Scotland (NMS; ) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. It runs the national museums of Scotland. NMS is one of the country's National Collections, and holds internationally important collect ...

*Whitfield, Niamh. ''The "Tara" Brooch:an Irish emblem of status in its European context'', in Hourihane, Colum (ed), ''From Ireland coming: Irish art from the early Christian to the late Gothic period and its European context''. Princeton University Press, 2001. , 9780691088259 * Whitfield, Niamh.
The Filigree of the Hunterston and 'Tara' Brooches
. In: ''The Age of Migrating Ideas. Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland''. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Insular Art, 1993 *Youngs, Susan (ed). ''"The Work of Angels", Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork, 6th-9th centuries AD''. London: British Museum Press, 1989.

External links

Hunterston Brooch
National Museums of Scotland

{{Insular art 8th century in Scotland 8th-century artifacts 1826 in Scotland 1826 archaeological discoveries Celtic brooches Collection of National Museums Scotland History of Argyll and Bute History of North Ayrshire Runic inscriptions Archaeological discoveries in the United Kingdom