Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Reconstructed medieval jugs on display at the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.

Detail of 13th century wine jug, decorated with figures of armoured knights and monkey figures. Made at Ham Green, Bristol. Recovered during excavations at High St., Dublin. Now in the collection of the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the secure button at the right. If you think it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. To help keep the site in operation, please use the amazon search portal at the right - each purchase earns a small amount of advertising revenue **] < Part I | Part II Prof. Etienne Rynne at the decorated east window of  Annaghdown Cathedral ,  Co. Galway, in 1996 (© Chapple Collection) In this, the third and final lecture, Prof. Rynne tackles ‘the big three’ of Irish Early Christian metalwork: The Tara Brooch , The Ardagh Chalice , and the Derrynaflan hoard . All of his obituaries noted that he accompanied the Ardagh Chalice to the British Museum when it was disassembled for cleaning and restoration. This gave him remarkable insight into the manufacture of the piece which, unfortunately, he never got around to publishing. While never filling the void, I hope tha

[The case has been made to me that certain aspects of this post are unsuitable for younger readers. In particular, the feedback I’ve received has been that both the title of the piece and the inclusions of links to ‘+18’ sites are problematic. I make no apology for either of these. The original title was deliberately provocative to attract attention and the links were necessary to provide references and proofs of my research. Nonetheless, I think there may be some merit in making a more ‘family friendly’ version available. To this end, I have reverted the title I used for an earlier draft and removed all of the hyperlinks in the text, including those to non-controversial sites. The only change to the text has been to edit the note regarding the source of the title. Otherwise, everything remains unchanged. The original, unexpurgated, version remains available to those want it.] Of all the beautiful Bronze Age gold items held by the National Museum of Ireland, I have a specia

[Owing to concerns over the title and the inclusion of supporting links to mature websites, I've created a slightly different version, available here , that uses a different title and removes the links. The text is otherwise almost identical] Of all the beautiful Bronze Age gold items held by the National Museum of Ireland, I have a special affection for this particular one, known as a ‘Dress Fastener’, from Killymoon Demesne, Co. Tyrone. Sure, it’s gorgeous and oh-so-gold … but that’s not what intrigues me about it. It’s the fact that it was discovered in a simple wooden box. It’s exactly the sort of thing that doesn’t usually survive and gives us a fleeting glimpse into how these beautiful objects would have been cared for and curated. The above was, pretty much, the entirety of what I had intended to say about it. 1) Beautiful gold 2) wooden box 3) General loveliness … Except that’s not exactly how things worked out … When I posted this image on social