The Lochar Moss Torc is an
Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
brass
torc or neck-ring found in Lochar Moss, near
Dumfries
Dumfries ( ; ; from ) is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the Counties of Scotland, ...
in Scotland. It was found by chance in the early nineteenth century and was later donated to 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 ...
.
Discovery
Lochar Moss, located on the
Solway Firth in southwest Scotland, was one of the largest raised
peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially Decomposition, decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, Moorland, moors, or muskegs. ''Sphagnum'' moss, also called peat moss, is one of the most ...
lands in Europe until much of it was destroyed and reclaimed for agricultural and urban uses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was in the 1840s that two Iron Age objects, a bowl and torc, were accidentally unearthed during peat-cutting. Most scholars suggest that the two items were deliberately deposited in the bog as a
votive or religious offering. They later came in to the possession of a local collector called Thomas Gray, who presented them both to the British Museum in 1853.
British Museum Collection
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Description
The Lochar Moss Torc was found inside a small bronze bowl, which helped to preserve it relatively intact. The collar is made of brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...
and is cast in two pieces: a solid crescent-shaped bar with engraved La Tène patterns and a series of hollow beads, one of which is missing. Although it was without doubt a prestigious item of jewellery that was cherished by the local community, it remains unclear who it originally belonged to and how the collar would have been worn by the wearer. The design of this type of neck-ring is unique to northern Britain during the early stages of the Roman colonisation of the province of Britannia
The image of Britannia () is the national personification of United Kingdom, Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin was the name variously appli ...
.
See also
* Great Torc from Snettisham
* Sedgeford Torc
* Newark Torc
Bibliography
*I. Stead, Celtic Art, British Museum Press, 1996
*Megaw Ruth and Vincent, Celtic Art: From Its Beginnings to the Book of Kells, 2001
*M. MacGregor, Early Celtic Art in North Britain, Leicester University Press, 1976
*J.W. Brailsford, Later prehistoric antiquities (London, Trustees of the British Museum, 1953
References
{{reflist
Torcs
Ancient Celtic metalwork
Prehistoric objects in the British Museum