St Ninian's Isle Treasure
{{short description|Hoard of silver metalwork discovered in Scotland in 1958}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
{{Infobox artefact
| name = St Ninian's Isle Treasure
| image = Early medieval hoard of Pictish silver objects dated c AD 800 from St Ninian's Isle, Shetland.jpg
| image_caption = Early medieval hoard of Pictish silver objects dated c. AD 800 from St Ninian's Isle, Shetland
| material = Silver, Silver-gilt
| size =
| writing =
| created =
| place = St Ninian's Isle, Shetland, Scotland
| location = National Museum of Scotland
| discovered = 4 July 1958
| id =
| registration =
}}
The St Ninian's Isle Treasure, found on St Ninian's Isle, Shetland, Scotland, 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.
Description
File:St_Ninian%27s_Isle_TreasureDSCF6211.jpg]]
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, one of only two known silver examples), one silver communion spoon, one silver knife, two silver chapes, one silver pommel, and three silver cones. The only non-silver item is a fragment of a porpoise jawbone. It is thought that some items were secular, 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.{{sfn|Youngs|1989|pp=108-112}}
The brooches show a variety of typical Pictish 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, probably made in Mercia in the late eighth century; one has an inscription with a prayer in Old English. 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".{{sfn|Webster|2012|pp=144-145}}
History
File:Tombolo St Ninians 5940.JPG
The hoard was discovered on 4 July 1958 by a schoolboy, Douglas Coutts, during an excavation of a medieval chapel on St Ninian's Isle. 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 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 ..."{{cite journal |last1=O'Dell |first1=A.C. |title=The St Ninian's Isle Silver Hoard |journal=Antiquity |date=1959 |volume=33 |issue=132 |pages=241–268|doi=10.1017/S0003598X00027654 |s2cid=163046639 }}
The treasure was allocated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in 1965–1966 as Treasure Trove, following the case in the Court of Session Lord Advocate v. University of Aberdeen{{cite book |last1=Carey Miller |first1=David L |title=Scots Law Tales |editor-first1=John |editor-last1=Grant |editor-first2=Elaine E |editor-last2=Sutherland |chapter=St Ninian's Isle Treasure |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |access-date= |pages=111{{ndash}}136 |language=en |doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9781845860677.003.0007 |date=1 August 2010 |isbn=9781845860677 }} and is now held in the successor National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, whilst replicas are held by the Shetland Museum.{{sfn|Youngs|1989|pp=108-112}}
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
See also
Citations
{{reflist}}
References
- {{cite book|last1=O'Dell|first1=A. |title=St. Ninian's Isle Treasure. a Silver Hoard Discovered on St. Ninian's Isle, Zetland on 4th July, 1958|year=1960 |publisher=Aberdeen University }}
- {{cite book |editor1-last=Youngs |editor1-first=Susan |title=The Work of Angels Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork, 6th-9th centuries AD |date=1989 |publisher=University of Texas |isbn=978-0292790582}}
- {{cite book |last1=Webster |first1=Leslie |title=Anglo-Saxon Art |date=2012 |publisher=British Museum Press |isbn=978-0714128092}}
External links
{{Commons category|St Ninian's Isle Treasure}}
- [http://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/results.php?QUICKSEARCH=1&search_term=St+Ninian%27s+Isle/ Photographs of the St Ninian's Isle Treasure at the National Museums Scotland website]
- [https://photos.shetlandmuseumandarchives.org.uk/index.php?a=ViewItem&key=SHsiRCI6IlN1YmplY3QgbWF0Y2hlcyBcIkV4Y2F2YXRpb25zXCIgb3IgaXRzIGNoaWxkcmVuIiwiTiI6OTczLCJQIjp7InN1YmplY3RfaWQiOiIzMDkiLCJqb2luX29wIjoyfX0&pg=1&WINID=1601404644192#Fu30BbnIrQQAAAF02yebew/28674/ Photographs of the St Ninian's Isle Treasure at the Shetland Museum website]
- [https://www.shetlandmuseumandarchives.org.uk/education/families/st-ninians-isle-treasure Children's activities about the Treasure at the Shetland Museum website]
- Scotland's Early Silver exhibition at National Museum of Scotland on [https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/scotland-s-early-silver/zwIyCejF3OgyIQ?hl=en Google Arts & Culture]
{{Celtic brooches}}
Category:Collection of National Museums Scotland
Category:9th century in Scotland
Category:Treasure troves in Scotland
Category:Archaeological sites in Shetland
Category:1958 archaeological discoveries