The Rogart Brooch is a large

penannular brooch The Celtic brooch, more properly called the penannular brooch, and its closely related type, the pseudo-penannular brooch, are types of brooch clothes fasteners, often rather large; penannular means formed as an incomplete ring. They are especial ...

Pictish Pictish is the extinct language, extinct Brittonic 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 num ...

origin, dated to the eighth century. Characteristic of contemporary Pictish brooches, it contains

three-dimensional Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal ...

bird-head inserts formed with glass. It was discovered at

Rogart Rogart ( , , meaning "great enclosed field") is a small village in Sutherland, Highland Council area, Highland, Scotland. The village was the home of Major Andrew MacDonald, who fought in the French and Indian War. It was originally a scatter ...

Sutherland Sutherland ( gd, Cataibh) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the Highlands of Scotland. Its county town is Dornoch. Sutherland borders Caithness and Moray Firth to the east, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire (later ...

, in Scotland in 1868 as part of a hoard of 8th century brooches. The hoard was unearthed during rock-blasting for the construction of the

Sutherland Railway The Sutherland Railway was a railway company authorised in 1865 to build a line from Bonar Bridge station to Brora, a distance of nearly 33 miles, in the north of Scotland. This was to be continuation of a route from Inverness to Bonar Bridge tha ...

. A workman found the collection of brooches in earth uncovered by the removal of a large boulder. He immediately left his work and disappeared southwards, on the way passing two brooches to Mr Macleod, a shopkeeper in Cadboll, who displayed them to the

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is the senior antiquarian body of Scotland, with its headquarters in the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. The Society's aim is to promote the cultural heritage of Scotland. The usua ...

in 1870. The total number of brooches discovered in the hoard was not recorded at the time. Both brooches are in the archaeology collection of the

National Museum of Scotland The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in ...

. The Rogart Brooch, the larger of the two, is on permanent display in the museum in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. A third brooch from the find went to the collection of the then Duke of Sutherland and later to

Dunrobin Castle Dunrobin Castle (mostly 1835–1845 — present) is a stately home in Sutherland, in the Highland area of Scotland, as well as the family seat of the Earl of Sutherland and the Clan Sutherland. It is located north of Golspie and approximatel ...

Descriptions

Rogart Brooch

The brooch is made from a flat band of silver decorated with carved and alternating interlace patterns some of which are in gold, and a head that is a quarter inch thick. The width of the head is , and the pin is long. The hoop is divided into four quadrants, each of which is decorated with interlace. The bird-heads are rendered in full-relief, all inward-facing, fixed with

rivet A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite to the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the rivet is placed in a punched ...

s, lined with gold, with narrow eyes made from green glass. They are placed on both the upper band of the ring and the quadrants of each of the two cloverleaf-shaped terminals.Antiquaries of Scotland (1882), p. 493 The terminals are about apart, and separated from both the ring-head and each other by raised borders lined with gold. The brooch is in relatively good condition; some of the settings for decorative studs in the head and terminals, made from red glass and

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Ma ...

, are missing. Its reverse is rather flat and unembellished.

Smaller brooch

The smaller brooch is made from silver and is in poor condition, having lost all its glass studs. The width of the head is , and the pin is long.

References

Sources

* * * * "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland".

, 1882 {{Insular art Individual brooches Celtic brooches Pictish art Silver-gilt objects