Ireland’s Bronze Age Gold | Ulster Museum, Belfast | Saturday 31 January 2015
In
the middle of December 2014, Robert M. Chapple posted
on his blog about an upcoming day of lectures at the Ulster Museum. The title of
the seminar itself was very appealing: Ireland’s
Bronze Age Gold. Cannot not attract attention with such a title! On a
personal note, the whole event was something I felt I had to attend, for three
reasons:
1) Despite having lived in Ireland for a decade and a half, I have never travelled ‘up North’
2) As I'm doing a postgraduate degree on exchanges, contacts and relations between Ireland and France during the 3rd Millennium BC (that, of course, includes early metalwork), I could not miss such opportunity
3) We all love prehistoric bling!
The
talks were set for Saturday 31 January 2015 and would take place
between 1.30pm and 4.15pm. The online program detailed the different parts of
the event, which included the three speakers: Greer Ramsay, keeper of the gold
collection at the Ulster Museum; Mary Cahill from the National Museum
of Ireland; and Richard Warner, former keeper of antiquities at the Ulster
Museum. After having booked a free ticket online, all that was left to do, was
to wait with expectations for over a month to pass.
Meanwhile,
Robert asked if anyone could assume the role of archaeo-journalist as he could
not attend personally. I said I would take on the role, but could not promise
quality: he was ok with it. Then, still using social networks, it was agreed I
would meet that day with two members of the administration of the Seandálaíocht
Facebook page, one from Belfast, the other from Dublin. The date was set for a
great day and it sure did not disappoint. After having travelled from Cork to
Belfast on Friday 30 January and having a short nigh sleep, the next
morning was full of promises. It was chilly, but the sun was out and the coffee
was steaming hot. So, a quick tour of the outside of the aesthetically pleasing
main buildings of Queen’s University Belfast, set with the beautiful background
of the snow-capped hills north-west of the city, I was off for a tour on my own
of the Ulster Museum.
Great place, interesting displays, wonderful artefacts. The prehistoric section,
of course, got my full attention. It was nice to be able to appreciate objects
that I have only read about or seen in pictures before (the Malone
Hoard of polished stone axeheads is very impressive ‘in the flesh’). Anyway,
enough about me.
After
having wandered around for nearly two hours, it was time to meet my colleagues.
A quick trip to the Palm House in the Botanic
Gardens to warm up, then off to the lecture theatre for the talk. The place
was not full, but between 100 and 150 people turned up (only 12 according to
the police). Everyone appeared to be in the mood for a good time, and the crowd
ranged from teenagers with adults, to seniors.
Greer
Ramsey introduced the proceedings and its content. The title did not lie, the
subject was gold from the Bronze Age in Ireland. Simple. He quickly discussed the
vast amount of artefacts made out of the precious metal, which can be found in both
the UM and the NMI. He also explained what was ‘treasure’ and the legislation
behind the discovery and declaration of finds, including some extracts from the
Historic
Monuments and Archaeological Objects Order 1995 (Northern Ireland); the Treasure Act 1996;
and the NI Code of Practice 2002.
Then,
the first talk was actually a piece of television. An episode of a series of
documentaries called Landscape Mysteries
from 2003 and hosted by Aubrey Manning, was projected on the big screen, which
discussed the potential sources of gold for prehistoric Irish metalworkers [here]. The video
included the usual suspects of sources: the Avoca region and
the hills of the
Wicklow/Wexford border, Croagh Patrick in County
Mayo and the Sperrin Mountains
of County Tyrone. If you watch the video, check out the gold panning and use of
a sheep’s hide, to collect the heavy but tiny gold crumbs from a stream in the
Avoca area – it’s very interesting. To discuss the substantial amount of gold
artefacts from this period also, the famous Mooghaun
Hoard from County Clare was mentioned. This hoard is a good example of the
attractive nature gold has on human beings. It was discovered in the 19th
century during the construction of a railway. Basically, many workers filled
their pockets with Late Bronze Age gold before the find was finally reported.
Many of the stolen artefacts made their way to jewellery workshops. Once it’s
gone, it’s gone.
After
the movie, Greer Ramsey discussed the wonderful Corrard
Torc (see Ramsey 2013) Dated to between circa
1300 and 1100 BC, the twisted and coiled gold torc was discovered at Corrard
near the shores of Upper Lough Erne, Co. Fermanagh. The object is made of a
thin cross-section with four flanges, which were then twisted before being,
probably, deposited into the wet area. Such torcs from this period are rare
finds in Ireland, but large numbers have been recorded in southern England and
across the Channel, which indicates long distance contact. The fact that the
torc was coiled appears to show a sort of decommissioning of the object, a
common occurrence of metal objects during the Bronze and Iron Age. Greer also
discussed such evidence of decommissioning with a similar example from northern
France, at Guînes,
Pas-de-Calais, where tiny gold pins were inserted into the coils of the
twisted gold to make it unusable for eternity. After this interesting talk
about a personal ornament, a break was welcome, when we could all refill on
caffeine, fresh air and nicotine levels.
The
second round began with Mary Cahill and her lecture entitled Prehistoric Irish gold: new finds, new
interpretations. She opened quickly by mentioning that, around 60 objects
have been acquired by both the NMI and UM between 1990 and 2014. She then
discussed in great detail the rather extraordinary recovery of a lunula and two sun-discs that were stolen in
2009 from a pharmacy at Strokestown, Co. Roscommon. The whole story is rather
amusing, and despite the seriousness of the situation, she managed to describe
the recovery in an entertaining and engaging way. Short overview: In 2009, two
robbers broke-in to a chemist shop in Strokestown. They managed to open the
safe, grabbed anything they could inside it (mostly paperwork) and legged it.
The two thieves were later caught and eventually convicted. Meanwhile, members
of the family who owned the pharmacy contacted authorities regarding some gold
objects that were amongst the paperwork. They were described as a flat
crescent-shaped ornaments and two small discs. Once the NMI was contacted, they
went looking for the objects. After being informed were the documents have been
thrown away, a lunula and the gold
discs were found at the bottom of a skip in Dublin. The museum then went all
CSI on the paper envelop in which the objects have been placed; ink impressions
and a bit of digital technology later, they were able to identify the original
place of discovery. They were found in a bog at Coggalbeg, Co.
Roscommon, and placed into the safe in 1947. This hoard is regarded by the
NMI as the most important Early Bronze Age hoard found in Ireland since the 19th
century.
Cahill
then went on to discuss the chronology and a possible interpretation of meaning
for lunulae and gold discs. Lunulae have never been found in
association with other metal objects in Ireland allowing for cross-dating. However,
one was found in a wooden box that has been radiocarbon dated to c. 2000 BC. Also, sun-discs are thought
to date to the Early Bronze Age, from around 2300-2200 BC. A fresh
interpretation for the joined use of lunulae
with sun-discs was put forward. The discs could be laid within the inside gap
of a lunula and represent the sun
being carried across the sky in a boat. This idea of the sun being moved or
pulled across the sky is a recurrent concept and has already been suggested
from a few of the sun-discs discovered on the Continent, such as the Nebra Sky Disc from
Germany (Pic.1) and the Trundholm Sun Chariot
(Pic.2).
Picture
1:
the Nebra Sky Disc, Germany
Picture
2: the
Trundholm Charriot Disk, Denmark
(Source: vikingnes guder webpage).
Then,
more recent finds were discussed, but this time for artefacts dated to the Late
Bronze Age. A case study was presented, regarding a hoard from Ballinesker, County
Wexford. The context is unknown, as the objects were discovered on a spoil
heap on a private property. It consisted of three dress fasteners and four
ear-pieces. Two ear-pieces were small box like ornaments and he two others were
bobbins. In comparison, modern pictures of enlarged ear-lobes from cultures
from all over the world show similar objects worn, still being put sometimes as
part of a rite of passage. Looks painful. Next, the subject was a small
ornament called a bulla
from Inch, Co. Down. Bullae are very small ornaments which
were highly decorated, with concentric circles, tiny gold threads and pins.
Five are in the collection of the National Museum of Ireland, one from the
Ulster Museum and one from the British Museum. The
objects consist of a core made of either clay or lead which was then covered
with gold. Their use is unclear, but the name itself is Latin for ‘bubble’ and
some have been found in Etruscan and Roman contexts on the Continent, used to
make necklaces. Finally, Cahill discussed a hoard from Dooyork, Co. Mayo,
which was made of a twisted ribbon torc and amber beads. Metal analysis have
revealed that, the level of gold in this type of torc was much lower than
during the Early Bronze Age, and actually date to the Iron Age, suggesting
different gold sources depending on the period. Also, similar examples have
been discovered in Scotland, but also in south-western France too, in the Toulouse
area. Once again, evidence of pan-European contacts.
To
end, the last talk was given by Richard Warner. The subject was a sort of
combination of what happened before hand. Warner discussed The Prehistoric Irish Gold Project, which involves XRF analyses of gold
artefacts and comparison with known sources. The NMI has, so far, analysed over
400 objects using this technique. The basic principle is to see the composition
of the metal, which contains around 88% of gold, 11.3% silver and 0.07% copper
(Au>Ag>Cu) for Early Bronze Age gold. Then, moving chronologically,
levels of silver and copper augmented during the Middle and Late Bronze Age and
the Iron Age. Not only is this technique important to determine sources, it
also protects museums from acquiring fake artefacts. Modern fakes are made of
gold not identified amongst Irish sources. Analyses from the UM collection have
revealed that, around one quarter of the artefacts are fake.
The
actual sources were discussed afterwards. Over 100 streams have been analysed across
Ireland, including the recognised gold-producing regions discussed above. Lunulae had been chosen to identify one
of the sources exploited during the Early Bronze Age (see Warner et al. 2009). Once again, the silver and
copper contents would be indicative of the origin of the metal. Most lunulae contained about 10% silver, so
the south-east part of the country was rapidly dismissed as a possible source.
Other areas such as the Wicklow Mountains and the Dublin region, as well as the
south Mayo-north Galway zone were rejected. However, the metal matches the
fingerprint of gold from the Mourne Mountains,
which is a rather important breakthrough since up until recently, many scholars
believed the gold originated in Cornwall.
This was suggested as analyses carried out during the 1960s and 70s, showed a
high content of tin within the gold of lunulae,
hence the supposed Cornish origin. Recent surveys have confirmed, however,
that, tin is also present in the Mourne Mountains. As well, recent surveying at
Knockshee and the Ballincurry
River in the same area has identified trench-working like features, which
are similar to features in Cornwall and Devon. During the Late Bronze Age,
other sources were identified. A hoard from Cathedral
Hill, Downpatrick, Co. Down was revealed to have been made of gold from
Portugal, so, we know that it was a commodity exchanged and reused. During this
period, however, local gold was used to make objects for the local people. A
penannular ring found at the large hillfort at Rathgall,
Co. Wicklow, was made of gold coming from … the Wicklow area.
To
summarise, the day of lectures was very informative about the sources of gold
in Ireland. It was presented in an effective and friendly manner. I was pleased
to hear about the Mourne Mountains as a probable source of gold for lunulae found in Ireland. Some found in
Britain and northern France may have been produced with Cornish metal, but
these Irish-made (or Irish-inspired) artefacts surely originated somewhere in
Ireland by goldsmiths familiar with the Mourne Mountains during the Early
Bronze Age.
Finally,
go raibh mile maith agat
to Robert Chapple for drawing my attention to this lecture, and to both Belfast
and the Ulster Museum which proved to be very welcoming to me.
Further reading
Ramsey,
G. 2013. ‘A twisted torc’ Archaeology
Ireland 27(3), 26-27.
Warner,
R., Chapman, R., Cahill, M., & Moles, N. 2009. ‘The gold-source found at
last?’ Archaeology Ireland 23(2), 22-25.
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