The Tully Lough Cross is an 8th- or 9th-century Irish altar or processional cross discovered in 1986 at the bottom of Tully Lough,

County Roscommon County Roscommon () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is part of the province of Connacht and the Northern and Western Region. It is the List of Irish counties by area, 11th largest Irish county by area and Li ...

. Although its origin is unknown, archaeologists associate it with a church in Kilmore, County Roscommon. It was formed from a wooden core overlain with

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

sheets containing spirals influenced by

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 ...

Celtic Ultimate La Tène style. Its dating is based on its use 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 ...

and style of ornamentation. When rediscovered, the Tully Lough Cross was badly damaged, and broken into pieces. It was repaired in the late 1980s when lost metal parts were replaced, and it was reconstruction based on similar crosses from contemporary Irish manuscript illustrations and

high cross A high cross or standing cross (, , ) is a free-standing Christian cross made of stone and often richly decorated. There was a unique Early Medieval tradition in Ireland and Britain of raising large sculpted stone crosses, usually outdoors. Th ...

es.Kelly (2003), p.9 The divers failed to report the finding of this highly important object of national heritage to the Irish government, as required by law. One of them was later prosecuted for trying to sell it to a number of American museums, including the Getty in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

at an offer price of $1.75m. It was acquired by the NMI in 1990, where it is on permanent display.Kelly, Eamon.
Recovered Celtic Treasure: The Tully Lough Cross
. ''Irish Arts Review'', Autumn 2003. Retrieved 8 March 2022

Discovery

The Tully Lough Cross was found by a diver in July 1986 at the bed of Tully Lough,

, near a

crannog A crannog (; ; ) is typically a partially or entirely artificial island, usually constructed in lakes, bogs and estuary, estuarine waters of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Unlike the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, which were built ...

(an artificial island used for dwelling). The divers failed, as required by law, to report the finding to the Irish government, and attempted to sell the item to a number of American museums. The Irish government learned of the sale when the

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthies ...

notified the

National Museum of Ireland The National Museum of Ireland () is Ireland's leading museum institution, with a strong emphasis on national and some international archaeology, Irish history, Irish art, culture, and natural history. It has three branches in Dublin, the arch ...

(NMI) that they had been contacted via a letter by "a lady in Massachusetts ... acting on behalf of two friends". She said she felt that, "a modest request would be 1.75 million dollars", before adding that she wanted the offer "kept in the utmost confidence".State Papers 1987: 30 things we've learned from 30 years ago
.

RTÉ (; ; RTÉThe É in RTÉ is pronounced as an English E () and not an Irish É ()) is an Irish public service broadcaster. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, ...

, 29 December 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2022 Dr Michael Ryan, then Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the NMI, informed the Getty that the cross had been "illicitly excavated from an Irish site ... and represents part of a pattern of plundering of our heritage which is currently the subject of a top-level investigation". The investigation eventually led to one of the discoverers being convicted in the

Athlone Athlone (; ) is a town on the border of County Roscommon and County Westmeath, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree. It is the second most populous town in the Midland Region, Ir ...

District Court,''Archaeology Ireland'' (1987), p.43 after the Irish Government, at the request of the NMI, "decided to get tough with

metal detector A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. A metal detector consists of a control box, an adjustable shaft, and ...

s and treasure hunters". The attempted sale led to a change in Irish law after the T.D.

Tom Enright Thomas W. Enright (born 26 July 1940) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Laois–Offaly constituency from 1969 to 1992 and 1997 to 2002. He also served as a Senator for the Administrative Panel fr ...

brought an amendment to the

Irish Constitution The Constitution of Ireland (, ) is the fundamental law of Ireland. It asserts the national sovereignty of the Irish people. It guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected non-executive president, a bicameral parliam ...

prohibiting the foreign sale of historically significant heritage artefacts, and raised the minimal penalty from £50 to £50,000, or six months in prison.

Description

The Tully Lough Cross was broken up into a number of pieces. Its reconstruction is high and wide.Moss (2014), p. 268 It unknown whether it was dismantled before it was deposited in the lake or whether it broke on first impact with the lough bed, or disintegrated due to centuries of wear. Archelogists estimate that it was hidden around the mid-12th century, during the Irish Church reform. It was commissioned as either an

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

or ceremonial processional cross. It was built from an

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

core lined with plain tinned

copper-alloy Copper alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component. They have high resistance against corrosion. Of the large number of different types, the best known traditional types are bronze, where tin is a significant addition, ...

(bronze) sheets forming the upright arms and crosspiece.

Tinned Tinning is the process of thinly coating sheets of wrought iron or steel with tin, and the resulting product is known as tinplate. The term is also widely used for the different process of coating a metal with solder before soldering. It is most ...

sheets were added to add a sheen reminiscent of

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

. These sheets are connected by tubular binding strips and at the middle by a

halved joint A halved joint is a woodworking joint in which the two members are joined by removing material from each at the point of intersection so that they overlap. The halved joint is differentiated from the lap joint in that the members are joined on e ...

, an iron nail, and bronze fittings shaped as animal heads. It contains a number of gilt pyramidal and circular bosses and mounts.Kelly (2003), p. 10 It contains about twenty surviving bronze panels, many of which are highly decorated with ornate patterns and designs influenced by the late

La Tène style. Three contain interlace, and the two figurative panels, at the top of the upper arm and halfway down between the crosspiece and base, have

openwork In art history, architecture, and related fields, openwork or open-work is any decorative technique that creates holes, piercings, or gaps through a solid material such as metal, wood, stone, pottery, cloth, leather, or ivory. Such techniques ha ...

. The reverse is less decorated but does contain bosses and mounts.Moss (2014), p. 269 The figurative panels are near-identical, with both showing a man dressed in a

kilt A kilt ( ) is a garment resembling a wrap-around knee-length skirt, made of twill-woven worsted wool with heavy pleats at the sides and back and traditionally a tartan pattern. Originating in the Scottish Highland dress for men, it is first r ...

reaching beyond his knees, standing between two

confronted animals Confronted animals, or confronted-animal as an adjective, where two animals face each other in a symmetrical pose, is an ancient bilateral motif in art and artifacts studied in archaeology and art history. The "anti-confronted animals" is the op ...

, and may represent either the

Nativity of Jesus The Nativity or birth of Jesus Christ is found in the biblical gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew and Gospel of Luke, Luke. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Palestine, in Herodian kingdom, Roman-controlled Judea, th ...

as prophesied, according to some Christian interpretations, in Habakkuk 3:2 ("In the midst of two animals Thou shalt become known") or the biblical tale of

Daniel in the lions' den Daniel in the lions' den (chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel) tells of how the biblical Daniel is saved from Asiatic lions by the God of Israel "because I was found blameless before him" (Daniel 6:22). It parallels and complements chapter 3, the ...

. The man's eyes are closed in the upper panel but open in the lower arm.

Irish processional crosses

The cross bears a number of similarities to the 12th-century

Cross of Cong The ''Cross of Cong'' (, "the yellow baculum") is an early 12th-century Irish Christian ornamented cusped processional cross, which was, as an inscription says, made for Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair (d. 1156), King of Connacht and High King of Ir ...

, including its cusped cross-arms, elaborate glass studs, indicating that its basic form was in use for at least four centuries. Although there is no other surviving Irish contemporary cross of this type, representations of the form can be found in some manuscript illustrations and

es, including the

Ruthwell Cross The Ruthwell Cross is a stone Anglo-Saxon cross probably dating from the 8th century, when the village of Ruthwell, now in Scotland, was part of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. It is the most famous and elaborate Anglo-Saxon monumental ...

found in

Dumfriesshire Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries or Shire of Dumfries () is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county in southern Scotland. The Dumfries lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area covers a similar area to the hi ...

, Scotland. The very similar

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 ...

Cross of Saint Rupert is now in

Bischofshofen Bischofshofen () is a List of cities and towns in Austria, town in the district of St. Johann im Pongau District, St. Johann im Pongau in the Austrian federal state of Salzburg (state), Salzburg. It is an important traffic junction located both on ...

, Austria.Kelly (2011), p. 109 Unlike the Cross of Cong, it is not thought to have been intended to contain a

relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Reli ...

. A very similar pyramidal mount was found in the West Midlands in England in 2014, and has also been dated to the 8th or 9th centuries.Mount: Unique ID: WAW-3168EE
.

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 ...

. Retrieved 11 March 2022 File:Ruthwell Cross 20100924 south side detail.jpg, The

, 8th century,

Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...

File:Museum im Kastenturm - Rupertkreuz 1.jpg, The Cross of Saint Rupert, 8th century, Northumbria File:Croce di cong, da cong, contea di mayo, 1100-1125 ca. 06.jpg, The

, c.1100–1125

Notes

Sources

* Kelly, Eamonn. "The Treasury: content and context". ''Irish Arts Review (2002-)'', volume 28, No. 2, 2011. * Kelly, Eamonn. "The Tully Lough cross". ''Archaeology Ireland'', volume 17, no. 2, issue 64, 2003. * Moss, Rachel. ''Medieval c. 400—c. 1600: Art and Architecture of Ireland''. London: Yale University Press, 2014. * Murray, Griffin.
Irish crucifixion plaques: a reassessment
In: Mullins, Juliet; Ni Ghradaigh, Jenifer (eds): ''Envisioning Christ on the Cross: Ireland and the Early Medieval West''. University of Notre Dame: Thomas F.X. Noble, 2014 * Murray, Griffin. "The provenance of an Irish crucifixion plaque". ''Archaeology Ireland'', volume 26, No. 4, Winter 2012. * "News: National Museum gets tough". ''Archaeology Ireland'', volume 1, number 2, December 1987. {{Insular art 8th century in Ireland 9th century in Ireland Collection of the National Museum of Ireland Insular art Irish art Processional crosses Medieval European metalwork objects