The St Ninian's Isle Treasure, found on

St Ninian's Isle St Ninian's Isle is a small tied island connected by the largest tombolo in the UK to the south-western coast of the Mainland, Shetland, in Scotland. It is part of the civil parish of Dunrossness on the South Mainland. The tombolo, known loca ...

Shetland Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...

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 northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, in 1958, is the best example of surviving silver metalwork from the early medieval period in Scotland. The 28-piece hoard includes various silver metalwork items, including twelve pennanular brooches. The treasure 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, ...

Description

The hoard consists of 28 silver and silver-gilt objects, dating to the second half of the eighth century. The objects can be grouped into categories relating to feasting, jewellery, and weaponry. There are twelve silver penannular brooches, eight silver bowls (one of which is a

hanging bowl Hanging bowls are a distinctive type of artefact of the period between the end of Roman rule in Britain in c. 410 AD and the emergence of the Christian Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the 7th century, continuing rather later. The survi ...

, one of only two known silver examples), one silver communion spoon, one silver knife, two silver

chape Chape has had various meanings in English, but the predominant one is a protective fitting at the bottom of a scabbard or sheath for a sword or dagger (10 in the diagram). Historic blade weapons often had leather scabbards with metal fittings a ...

s, one silver pommel, and three silver cones. The only non-silver item is a fragment of a

porpoise Porpoises () are small Oceanic dolphin, dolphin-like cetaceans classified under the family Phocoenidae. Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals and Beluga whale, belugas than to the Oceanic dolphi ...

jawbone. It is thought that some items were

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...

, such as the penannular brooches and different chapes from sword scabbards. Other pieces, including the bowls, spoon, and cones, may have been used in religious ceremonies or community rituals. The brooches show a variety of typical

Pictish Pictish is an extinct Brittonic Celtic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from late antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geog ...

forms, with both animal-head and lobed geometrical forms of terminal. Two of the scabbard chapes and a sword pommel appear to be

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

, probably made in

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

in the late eighth century; one has an inscription with a prayer in

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

. Gifts were often exchanged between Anglo-Saxon and Pictish rulers, and generally "weapons are among the objects which travelled most widely in the early medieval period".

History

The hoard was discovered on 4 July 1958 by a schoolboy, Douglas Coutts, during an excavation of a medieval chapel on

. Coutts found the treasure in a wooden box, which had been buried under a cross-marked slab. Coutts was helping visiting archaeologists led by Professor Andrew Charles O'Dell of Aberdeen University. It is believed that the treasure was hidden beneath the floor of an earlier church. Professor O'Dell, writing in December 1959 in ''Antiquity'', recounts that:
:"... the church on this site was described early in the 18th century as being still venerated by local people although it had been abandoned at the Reformation in favour of a more central parish church ... ... from the sandy spit, which has formed between the mainland and the isle, gales have carried sand and this, together with the accretion of a graveyard in use until c.1850, buried the church remains and all knowledge of its exact location had vanished from living memory ... At the occasion of the first Viking Congress in 1951 Dr W. Douglas Simpson suggested a search might prove rewarding and this was undertaken in 1955 by a party of my students under my direction. The results in this and succeeding years have exceeded expectations. ... The medieval building with its massive mortared walls, main altar and a side altar had made the excavation noteworthy before 4 July 1958, when the hoard was discovered. Close to the southern

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

arch foundation, and missed by inches by later burials, was found a broken sandstone slab, 10.5 in. by 15 in., lightly inscribed with a cross and, below this, was the hoard. It had been contained in a larch box of which a few splinters, impregnated with metal salts, had escaped decay. The bowls were upside down and the brooches and other objects tangled together, showing it has been hurriedly carried and buried with the top down. In with the objects was the porpoise jawbone and this, the only non-metallic object, is strong evidence of its ecclesiastical connection, although the brooches suggest a secular link ..." The treasure was allocated to the

National Museum of Antiquities 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, ...

in 1965–1966 as

Treasure Trove A treasure trove is an amount of money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion found hidden underground or in places such as cellars or attics, where the treasure seems old enough for it to be presumed that the true owner is dead and the he ...

, following the case in the

Court of Session The Court of Session is the highest national court of Scotland in relation to Civil law (common law), civil cases. The court was established in 1532 to take on the judicial functions of the royal council. Its jurisdiction overlapped with othe ...

''Lord Advocate v. University of Aberdeen'' and is now held in the successor National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, whilst replicas are held by the Shetland Museum.

Gallery

File:The Pictish penannular silver bowls in the hoard from St Ninian's Isle, Shetland.jpg, Penannular silver bowls File:Two silver sword scabbard chapes in the hoard from St Ninian's Isle, Shetland.jpg, Silver sword scabbard chapes File:Three conical silver mounts in the hoard from St Ninian's Isle, Shetland.jpg, Conical silver mounts File:The Pictish penannular silver brooches in the hoard from St Ninian's Isle, Shetland.jpg, Penannular silver brooches File:St Ninian's Isle TreasureDSCF6202det.jpg, Zoomorphic brooch terminals File:St Ninian's Isle TreasureDSCF6214.jpg, Bowl

Citations

References

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External links