Scotland in Pagan Times; The Iron AgeAnderson, Joseph
History
Scotland in Pagan Times; The Iron Age
Anderson, Joseph
Scotland -- Antiquities
The typical form of neck ring and arm ring (Figs. 64, 65), which is
associated with the bulbous brooches in these hoards, composed of
hammered rods and intertwisted wires of silver plaited manifoldly, and
formed into a circlet by soldering the ends, does not occur again in
Scotland. But it has obvious relations with a group of personal
ornaments in gold, which present similar features of form and
construction. They are of smaller size than the silver rings, all that
are known being obviously finger-rings.
[Illustration: Fig. 86.—Gold Rings found at Stenness (actual size).]
Two of these (Fig. 86, Nos. 2 and 3) were dug up in the month of August
1879, in a field near the shore of the Loch of Stenness, in Orkney, and
are now in the National Museum. The largest is formed of two double
twists of gold wires, hammered round, and tapering to the small ends,
which are connected by a lozenge-shaped bezel. The smaller of the two is
composed of three strands of gold wire, similarly shaped by the hammer
alone, and intertwisted, and the small ends soldered together. With them
there were also found two plain flat hoops or circlets of gold, of about
an inch in diameter, ¼ inch wide in the widest part, and tapering to the
ends, which are unjoined (Fig. 86, No. 1).
There is also in the Museum a hoard of gold objects of this character,
consisting of six finger-rings of plaited wires, a plain solid ring
formed of a tapering rod (Fig. 87), with the ends unjoined, two portions
of plaited rings cut off, and two portions of plain solid rings
similarly cut. Two of the plaited rings (one of which is shown in Fig.
87) are formed of three wires each, intertwisted, and the ends soldered
together; the wires or rods are simply rounded by the hammer and tapered
to either end. The other four rings are slightly larger. They are
composed of eight wires, each similarly fashioned by the hammer alone,
and ingeniously interplaited, so that two strands of the plait form a
ridge all round the convexity of the ring, the ends united and worked
flat to form a bezel. Unfortunately we are unable to localise this hoard
more closely than that it was found somewhere in the Hebrides.
[Illustration: Fig. 87.—Gold Rings found in the Hebrides (actual size).]
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