Category: Medieval

Lewis chessmen turn their backs on visitors

Medieval, Museums

The iconic Lewis chessmen at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh have been placed in a new case that displays the incredibly intricate carving on their backs. This is the first time visitors to the museum will be able to see the back of the 12th/13th century game pieces.

The chess pieces were made of walrus ivory and sperm whale teeth by a highly skilled artisan probably in Trondheim, Norway, around 1200. A hoard of 93 game pieces was discovered on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides in 1831. (When the pieces were made, Lewis was part of the Norse-Gaelic Kingdom of the Isles which was ruled by Norway.) Most of them were sold to the British Museum which now has 82 of the chessmen. The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh has 11 of them.

Their wide-eyed expressions and the “Berserker” figure gnawing on his shield have always garnered the attention of scholars and the public, so they have been displayed with their faces to the viewer. But the backs are hidden gems, with hair in ringlets, lappets of the bishop’s mitre and intricate vine scrolls on the throne backs.

Dr Alice Blackwell, Senior Curator of Medieval Archaeology and History at National Museums Scotland said:

“The Lewis chess pieces are much loved thanks in part to their iconic expressions and poses, however these are objects which were designed to be appreciated from all angles. After all, each player sees the backs of their own pieces. The carver has really gone to town on the throne backs in particular, with entwined tendrils and knotwork that are really sumptuous compared to the simpler fronts. I’m delighted that visitors to the National Museum of Scotland will now have the chance to get to know these charming characters in the round.”

As of October 31st, the chessmen are in their display case at the entrance to the Kingdom of the Scots gallery. They are literally illuminated by new lighting and figuratively illuminated by new information panels.

You can see the intricate decoration on the backs of five of pieces in this video when the curator turn them around so their backs are to the camera.

Charity acquires largest Norman coin hoard for the nation

Medieval, Treasures

The hoard of 2,584 silver pennies from the time of the Norman conquest discovered at Chew Valley in Somerset has been acquired for the nation by the non-profit South West Heritage Trust. Valued at £4.3 million ($5.6 million), it is the highest-value treasure find ever made in England. The organization was able to raise the money thanks to a large grant of £4,420,527 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £150,000 from the Art Fund. The sum will be shared 50/50 between the landowner and the seven finders.

The coins were discovered by a group of seven metal detectorists in January of 2019. Only two of them, Lisa Grace and Adam Staples, were experienced, and they were teaching the rest how to use their new machines when one of the newbies found a William the Conqueror silver penny. Then they found another, and another. They should have stopped after the first few coins and called archaeologists, of course, but they did not. Instead, five hours of detector alerts and amateur digging later, they had a bucket full of thousands of silver coins. Only then did they report the find to the Portable Antiquities Scheme and a week later they deposited the coins at the British Museum.

The coins had been scattered by agricultural work over the centuries, so the hoard was not found as it was buried anyway, but having lost the chance to excavate the archaeological context of the hoard whatever that might be is all the more tragic in this case because the hoard is unique window into the immediate aftermath of the Norman invasion. The Chew Valley hoard consists of 1,343 silver pennies of William the Conqueror (r. 1066-1087), and 1,240 coins from the last Anglo-Saxon king of England Harold II (r. January 1066-October 14 1066), with a one penny of Edward the Confessor (r. 1042- January 1066) and three “mules,” counterfeit combinations of coins by William and Harold that were created by moneyers to dodge taxes. About 100 moneyers from 46 mints are named on the coins; some of the moneyers are the first named people from an English city.

All of the coins date to between 1066 and 1068. It is the largest hoard of coins from the immediate post-Norman Conquest period ever discovered and the largest Norman treasure of any kind to be found since 1833. The hoard was buried in 1068 on a property that would later be granted to Gisa, chaplain to King Edward the Confessor and the Bishop of Wells. At that time, the Chew Valley was embroiled in a rebellion against Normal rule led by Harold’s sons, so it’s like the coins were buried for safekeeping.

The Chew Valley hoard will go on display at the British Museum starting November 26th. It will then go on a brief tour of UK museums, including in Bath near the find site, before settling permanently at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton.

Anglo-Saxon imitation of Roman gold coin declared treasure

Ancient, Medieval, Treasures

An Anglo-Saxon imitation of a late Roman gold solidus discovered in Norfolk last year has been declared treasure. It’s a rough copy of a solidus minted by the Emperor Honorius (r. 393-423 A.D.) that was created long after his death to wear as a pendant.

The imitation Honorius coin has a ribbed suspension loop with four ribs and three grooves soldered to the 12 o’clock position. The wear and tear on the loop indicates the coin was worn as a pendant for a long time, likely with the obverse (the emperor’s bust) showing and the reverse against the body.

Several versions of the genuine solidus were minted in the imperial capitals of Mediolanum (Milan), Ravenna and Constantinople between 394 and 402 A.D. They all portray the draped, cuirassed bust of Honorius wearing a pearl diadem on the obverse. The reverse features the emperor standing with the military standard in his right hand and a winged Victory standing on a globe in his left. Under his left foot is a bound captive. There are small variations between the different strikes of this coin type, and the military standard Honorius holds comes in a couple of forms. Some of the coins have a standard vexillum: a banner draped over a cross-bar mounted to a vertical staff. Others have a labarum, a vexillum with the Chi-Rho symbol on top which was the talismanic symbol Constantine carried.

The vexillum on the Anglo-Saxon imitation looks like a Christian cross inside a square, but the Anglo-Saxons were not Christian yet and in any case even the Christian version of the vexillum doesn’t have just a plain cross slapped inside the banner; it’s the ☧ symbol with the loop of the P on the center top of the banner. It’s quite hard to make out on the small gold coins, and the copyists didn’t have the cultural recognition or skill to make the distinction. The abstract lines that are supposed to convey the winged Victory underscore those limitations. They also removed the captive entirely, probably due to its complexity, but it’s an entertaining thought that they might have rejected the iconography of subjugation since the moneyers who designed these coins would most assuredly have identified them with the barbarian under the emperor’s heel rather than the emperor they identified themselves with.

Dr Marsden, from the Norfolk Historic Environment Service, said this was an era when the Roman Empire, which had become officially Christian by AD380, was “in freefall”.

“We know the Anglo-Saxons of this period are pagan and they are moving in and starting to take over the whole of England, mainly in the east at this moment,” he said.

“It’s slightly ironic, these people are definitely not Christian, yet they are copying a Christian image – the moot point is if they understood the imagery – and they blundered the lettering, so they’re certainly not literate.”

A number of gold coins from the late Western Roman and Byzantine empires converted into pendants in the early Middle Ages have been found in Britain. Genuine Roman coins with suspension loops added by the Anglo-Saxons in the 6th and 7th centuries have been found both as individuals and in coin hoards. Roman gold coins were hard to find at the time and place, hence their desirability as a status symbol instead of simply being used as bullion. Imitations of imperial solidi, siliquae and tremisi were created by the Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic peoples, most prominently the Merovingian Franks whose mints produced almost all of the coins in England at that time. All 37 of the gold coins found in the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo ship burial, four of which were imitations of Byzantine gold coins, came from different mints in Merovingian Gaul.

Dr Marsden said such imitations were “very unusual”.

“We see Roman gold coins being repurposed as coins, occasionally with very similar suspension loops, but here they’ve made the whole thing from scratch,” he said.

Despite the collapse of the empire, the Anglo-Saxons would have come across many impressive Roman buildings, as well as coins and artefacts, and that may be why they want to copy something “so distinctly Roman”.

Museum fundraises to buy Oliver Cromwell’s watch

Medieval, Museums

The Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, is seeking to acquire one of only two pocket watches known to have belonged to Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England. Because Cromwell fell so far out of favor after his death and the Restoration of the monarchy, his possessions were scattered and there is almost no material with a strongly evidenced connection to him. The only other provenanced watch of Cromwell’s is in the British Museum.

The timepiece, with its delicately etched image of a hand with pointed finger, is “of a style known as a Puritan watch”. [Cromwell Museum curator Stuart] Orme said: “Seventeenth Century watches were completely over the top, with pierced foliate on the outside, whereas this is quite small and, to our modern eye, it appears classically beautiful.”

Puritans were Protestants who, like Cromwell, thought the Reformation of the Church of England had not gone far enough. Such a watch was also quite an expensive status symbol for the parliamentarian, who was second-in-command by 1647 but “not quite as austere as people think”.

The fob watch was made by William Clay around 1645. It has a circular clock face with a single steel hand, Roman numerals and a gilt outer calendar ring. It is mounted in a silver oval case. It is wee at just 1.5 inches long and one inch wide. Clay was a well-known watchmaker in the mid-17th. century, opening his first London shop in the 1630s. He established a workshop on King Street in Westminster in 1646.

Cromwell bought the watch in 1647 when moved into a home a couple of doors down from Clay’s shop on King Street. He had it with him on his campaign in Ireland in 1649. According to Blackwell family lore, in 1650 Cromwell gifted the watch to cavalry officer and Deputy Treasurer at War John Blackwell, and husband of Oliver Cromwell’s cousin, Elizabeth Smithsby.

Blackwell would go on to have a colorful career, working in the treasury, as a judge and as an MP during the Protectorate. Despite his republican leanings, he was loyal to Oliver Cromwell to the end, following his effigy in the cortege for his state funeral in 1658. He was not so fond of Oliver’s son and successor Richard, however, and took part in the military coup that overthrew him.

Come the Restoration, Blackwell was permanently barred from holding government office. He moved across the pond to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he was appointed Governor of Pennsylvania by William Penn. He retired back to England by 1694. He died in 1701, bequeathing the watch Cromwell had given him 50 years before to his sons.

It remained in the Blackwell family (Bagwell for the Irish branch) by descendance for more than 350 years. One of those heirs, Colonel John Bagwell (1751-1816), showed the watch to historian and Cromwell genealogist Richard Gough. Gough had it sketched and published in the December 1808 issue of Gentleman’s Magazine, an extremely rare instance of a Cromwell object being documented so early in a scholarly publication.

Historic jewelry specialist Martyn Downer acquired the watch when the family sold it at an auction in Carlisle in 2019. He paid £18,000 and purely as a 17th century Puritan watch with a silver case that price would have been a huge bargain. For such a rare timepiece which additionally boasted a demonstrable connection to Cromwell, the price was a small fraction of its worth. During COVID lockdown, Downer restored the watch and researched its history to confirm the Blackwell lore. In 2021, he offered it for sale for ten times the amount he’d paid for it, £180,000. It is still for sale today.

The watch has been on display at the museum since January of this year. The special exhibition November 10th, but the museum is raising funds to buy the watch for its permanent collection. It has one of the best collections in the world of objects from the life and times of Oliver Cromwell, but as a charitable organization, it has no acquisition budget. The museum is working on securing most of the money needed in grants from trusts and foundations, but must raise £9,500 on its own. So far they have raised £1,025 of that target. Click here to donate.

Medieval IKEA church roof found on Dutch reclaimed land

Medieval

Land reclamation work in Almere, in the north central Netherlands’ province of Flevoland, has uncovered beams from a medieval construction kit for a church roof. The beams date to the 15th century and were likely being transported by ship when they fell overboard or sank with the ship in the Zuiderzee, today a freshwater lake, but an open waterway on the North Sea in the 1400s.

The Zuiderzee was at different times a lake and a North Sea bay, depending on sea levels and coastal erosion. Construction of the Afsluitdijk dam in the 20th century caused its current lake incarnation, and Almere was built on land reclaimed from it between 1959 and 1968, making it the Netherlands’ youngest city. Despite its youth, there are archaeological remains in the deep layers of the former bay/lake under the city going back to the Neolithic.

Archaeologists discovered the beams while surveying the site of future development in the Almere Pampus district. Archaeologist Yftinus van Popta drilled down to create a “viewing hole” and spotted the wood in an excellent state of preservation thanks to the waterlogged environment. It’s a pack of at least 80 beams that were assembled using marks carved by the carpenters into the wood as instructions. When fitted together, the beams would have formed a pointed roof approximately 9 by 22 meters (30 by 72 feet).

In what is now Almere Pampus, the remains of at least three shipwrecks were found in the 1980s on one plot, as well as parts of the late medieval church roof. When the beams were found, they were reburied somewhere else. A conscious choice, says van Popta: “If you bring it up, it will dry out, and then you have to do something with it. But conservation is very expensive.” The exact location of the reburial has not been well preserved.

Based on old aerial photographs, overview drawings and descriptions by the archaeologists at the time, he got a suspicion where the reburied church roof should be. A drilling investigation was carried out there. Plastic and wood were soon found, exactly as expected, because old photographs showed that the church roof had been covered with agricultural plastic.

It is unique to find a wooden church roof as a shipload in its entirety. Van Popta: “If the beams are in good condition, you could still put it together as intended, so to speak, and that is very special.” The municipality is having additional research done to determine the precise dating of the wood and to gain more clarity about the ship on which it was transported.