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 locally ...

, 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

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 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 Porpoises are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals an ...

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. 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 The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

, probably made in Mercia in the late eighth century; one has an inscription with a prayer in

Old English Old English (, ), 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 was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

. 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 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 William Douglas Simpson CBE (2 August 1896 – 9 October 1968) was a Scotland, Scottish academic and writer who focused on the study of medieval architecture and archaeology. Career Simpson was appointed Assistant in History at the Univers ...

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 ..." The treasure was allocated to the

National Museum of Antiquities 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 of Scotland, culture and History of Scotland, history, and the ...

in 1965-6 as Treasure Trove, following the case in the

Court of Session The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh ...

''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