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Posts from the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Category

Mar 22

saphire ring
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The Esrick Ring

The Escrick ring probably from the 5th or 6th century and possibly royal…

2009 a metal dectorist, Michael Greenhorn, found a unique golden finger ring adorned with a sapphire. The ring, which was found near Yorkshire, was originally deemed to be medieval.

Experts, recently discussing the Escrick Ring at a workshop in York, now believe it was probably from the 5th or 6th century – and not the 10th or 11th as originally thought.

They also suggested the ring was made in Europe, possibly France, and that it would have belonged to a king, leader or consort – not a Bishop which was a previous theory. The wear on the ring also suggests that it could have been a brooch first, which was later made into a ring.

Natalie McCaul, curator of archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum who owns the ring, said: “What this workshop has shown is that this sapphire ring is even more special than we had previously thought. Nothing like it has been found in this country from the 5th or 6th century.

“It has been fantastic to hear the thoughts of some of the world’s leading experts and their suggestions will allow us to now go away and try and fit the ring into a historical timeframe. Hopefully this will lead us to finding out more about the ring and possibly even who might have owned it”, she says.

More than 30 experts from attended the workshop across the country. After a day of talks, presentations and discussions the main theories were that the ring was of a style similar to others found in Europe in the 5th or 6th centuries.

This link to Europe and the fact nothing has been found like it in Britain before, suggest that this is where it was made. When checking for other examples of ring from this period, none similar were found to belong to Bishops, which suggests it would have belonged to a King, leader or consort.

The sapphire in the ring was probably cut earlier, possibly during the Roman period, but the ring itself was specially made around the sapphire. By looking at the wear on the ring it is thought that it was worn for at least 50 years before it was lost.

The gold hoop that forms the ring also looks slightly different to the main part of the ring, with suggestions being made that it was turned into a ring later, possibly from a brooch or mount.

One alternative suggestion made was that the ring was from a later period (perhaps the 8th or 9th centuries) but was inspired by earlier styles in both jewelry and perhaps surviving stonework in Yorkshire dating from the 5th or 6th centuries.

The theories suggested during the day will now be followed up, with particular attention paid to where the ring was found and any archaeology or historical information relating to it from the 5th or 6th centuries. Researchers from the University of Durham, who will carry out X-Rays in order to study how it was made, will conduct this initially. Also the sapphire and glass elements will be studied more comprehensively. Samples will also be taken from the gold hoop, to see if it is a different gold from the main part of the ring.

The nationally important gold ring was found by metal detectors Michael Greenhorn, from York and District Metal Detecting Club, in 2009. It measures around 2.5cm across and is intricately made of gold, prestige glass and a large sapphire.

The Yorkshire Museum has raised £35,000 to buy the ring, with generous grants of £10,000 from the Art Fund, £10,000 from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, £10,000 from the Headley Trust and £1,000 from the Yorkshire Philosophical Society.

READ MORE:

About the symbolic value of rings in the 5th and 6th century and saphires at that time:

The Seal of Alaric, rex Gothorum
By Genevra Kornbluth.
In: Early Medieval Europe, Vol 16, Issue 3, pages 299 – 332, August 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 20

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Anglo-Saxon Stone

The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture is online

The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture identifies, records and publishes in a consistent format, English sculpture dating from the 7th to the 11th centuries. Much of this material is previously unpublished. Apart from its artistic qualities and its art-historical importance, it is of crucial importance when medievalists try to identify the earliest settlements of the Anglo-Saxon/Pre-Norman English. The Corpus documents the earliest Christian field monuments from free-standing carved crosses and innovative decorative elements and furnishings of churches, to humble grave-markers.

From Books to Online
A reliable and comprehensive catalogue of Anglo-Saxon sculpture has long been needed – by archaeologists, art historians, historians and place-name specialists, and interested non-specialists alike. Durham University, under the guidance of Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp, supported by more than thirty researchers spread throughout the country, has coordinated the production of a series of bound volumes documenting the sculpture in almost every English county. There are currently ten published Corpus volumes, the very latest (the West Midlands) published in mid 2012 and the very first (County Durham and Northumberland) published in 1984. Those volumes, which remain in print, may be purchased from the British Academy via the Oxford University Press. The remaining volumes, which are now out of print, will be published online in the near future. Already it is possible to access the bibliographies of the first six volumes covering the sculpture from County Durham and Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire, York and Eastern Yorkshire, South-East England, Lincolnshire and Northern Yorkshire.

CroftCross3 copyright KornBluth Photo 188x300 Anglo Saxon Stone

The Croft Cross © Genevra Kornbluth at KornbluthPhoto.com

Northumbrian Stone Sculpture
The current online resource makes available the material contained in Volume 1: County Durham and Northumberland. Eventually, all Corpus volumes will be available online.

The Northumbrian stone sculpture is especially rich with its great stone crosses such as those at Ruthwell, Bewcastle, Rothbury and Otley. Carved in high relief, they are characterised by their complex iconographies as well as their evident classical connotations. It is obvious that skillful stonemasons, who were either imported from Gaul and Italy or alternatively trained there, must have carved the crosses as well as the rest of the early sculptures. It is generally believed that the crosses were positioned in the centres of the grand monasteries like Jarrow and Monkwearmouth embodying the focal and enduring character of the Christian Cross built on “Petros” – stone.

The photos are very fine and presents the viewer with the possibility to study the sculptures in detail. However, the photos are rendered in black and white, often highly contrasted. Thus the seductive surface of the withered stone eludes us. A more refined approach may be found at Kornbluth Photo, where Genevra Kornbluth presents some of the more prominent pieces with loving details.

Project Sponsors
The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture is supported by the Headley Trust, part of the Sainsbury Family’s Charitable Trusts, and by UK’s National Academy for the Humanities and the Social Sciences, the British Academy, with additional funding from the Pilgrim Trust and the AHRC.

SOURCE:
The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture

READ MORE:
Anglo Saxon Art
by Leslie Webster
The British Museum 2012

 

 

Nov 1

south of KnightonOffa's Dyke, Hawthorn HillPowysSceneryM99-897-SP
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Offa’s Dyke

The early medieval earthwork, Offa’s Dyke recently entered the Lonely Planet list of the world’s “Must-See” 2013

Are you a keen walker on the lookout for new trails to wander along? If so, Offa’s Dyke should – at least according to Lonely Planet – top your plans for your next adventure 2013.

The Monument
Offa’s Dyke is a massive linear earthwork consisting of a ditch and a bank. The earthwork – including ditch – is up to 18 meters wide with a bank up to 3.65 metres high on the Welsh side (1.83 metres on the English side). At least it ranged 102 km; maybe it divided Wales from England from sea to sea. As it stands today, it has been heavily eroded in most places. Since large parts of it has virtually disappeared, the exact extension is a contested issue as is also the date as well as function of the construction. Most believe, however, that it dates from the reign of the Mercian king, Offa, from 757 – 796.

A historiographic overview
Anyone, who is interested in the history of the Dyke, may get a recent historiographical overview in an article published by Damian Tyler. In the article he gives an overview of the three main studies of the Dyke – the study by Fox in the middle of the 20th century, the unpublished work by Frank Noble and finally the recent work by the late David Hill and his wife Margaret Worthington, which was carried out as part of the ODP, the Offa’s Dyke project. The ODP was a voluntary organization connected with the University of Manchester. In 2003 they published what is still the best introduction to the history of the Dyke and the extensive archaeological and historical survey of the monument, they carried out.

Read much more about the history of Offa’s Dyke, why it is reasonable to believe that it was in fact Offa, who was behind,  and get a new evaluation on the time it took to construct the dyke, which was at least 102 km long…

Medieval Histories, 2012: 11:1

Jul 31

iron_coulter_6-7th-century-

Lyminge in Kent

Anglo-Saxon Lyminge in Kent yields important new knowledge

Lyminge in Kent is a well-documented place in the early Anglo-Saxon History of the end of the 7th century. It was a double monastery traditionally thought to have been founded for Æthelburh (or Ethelburga, Ædilburh and Æthelburga) (? – 647), daughter of king Æthelberht of Kent and widow of King Edwin of Northumbria. A somewhat later date is now preferred, corroborated by the fact that it earlier on functioned as a royal centre as witnessed by a charter of 689 which grants 1 sulung (app. 120 or 240 acres) of iron-bearing land (an iron mine), formerly belonging to the royal vill at Lyminge in Kent.

In this context “sulung” is an interesting word. In Danish the word “sul” (or “plovsule”) is in continuous use up until early modern time. Here it signifies the the vertically placed wooden cross-piece to which the ploughshare was fastened. Whether it had the same specific meaning in Anglo-Saxon cannot be determined, but it seems likely.

plan of excavation lyminge 300x240 Lyminge in KentA fact is however, that excavations at Lyminge in 2011 yielded a magnificent find, an iron coulter, thus proving beyond doubt the existence of proper ploughs as early as the 7th century AD. A coulter is a bar mounted like a knife to cut through the soil ahead of the share and mouldboard. The coulter was lying on the base of an Anglo-Saxon sunken-floored building. In the deposit above it was a large collection of artefacts that included many “type fossils” – jewellery, glass, pins, beads and pottery, which have been dated from grave assemblages elsewhere in Kent to the first half of the 7th century; the coulter was thus found in what is generally known as a sealed deposit.

According to the excavation director Gabor Thomas, “The coulter’s significance lies in its date and its function. The simple ard is efficient at breaking light ground. By contrast, the “heavy plough” breaks and turns the earth, and pulled by a team of up to eight oxen can cope with conditions beyond an ard’s capacity”.

Such heavy ploughs were known in Roman Britain but were formerly thought to have fallen out of use after the Anglo-Saxon immigration from Northern Germany and Scandinavia AD 410 changed the agrarian landscape. A linguistic relic of that time – the use of the word “sulung” as a description of substantial piece of tilled land – has hitherto not been considered as evidence for the early use of a proper plough. However, with the find of the coulter, which weighed 6kg – this part of British agrarian history has to be rewritten.

The Lyminge Archaeological Project
However, the coulter is not the only remarkable find at Lyminge. Other findings of glass, slags from iron-working, deposits of etc. have yielded a remarkable amount of material, which is currently being analysed from all sorts of angles and using state-of-the-art scientific methods. One of the reasons is that the excavation not only focuses on getting a general overview of the whole settlement and its historical development, but also examines the site in the context of its surrounding landscape. While the most recent campaign in 2010 revealed the older settlement from the 6th-7th century, where the coulter was found, the next phase will focus on the archaeological traces of the Anglo-Saxon Monastery. The archaeologists hope that it will be possible to document the changes wrought through the period of Christianisation; and thus even parallel the findings from Yeavering, where the excavation of pre-Christian halls have been complemented by excavations of what is deemed a very early church. With the proviso, of course, that at Lyminge parts of this church still stands.

On the other hand a slightly different character of the artefacts found at Lyminge (and Bishopstone) as compared to those found at Northumbrian sites seem to witness to a different material culture in the South. According to the archaeologists “a clear distinction” can be observed in e.g. the ornamented dress-accessories, which seem to have been more austere and limited. Maybe funding was poured into other forms of conspicuous consumption  like the building of elaborate stone edifices? Hopefully, this is one of the questions which further excavations will shed light on.

Recently the Lyminge Archaeological project was highly commended in the British Archaeological Awards 2012 under the category “Best Archaeological Project” and further funding in 2012 -14 have been secured.

The Lyminge Archaeological project

Kent plough find challenges farming history

 Follow the news at the Lyminge Blog

The Big Dig Bishopstone and Lyminge