The Hunterston Brooch
About 700
Sitting in its case like a small sun, the Hunterston Brooch is one of the earliest and finest pieces of Celtic jewellery in existence. It is a large ring brooch of cast silver, made about the year seven hundred, and every part of its surface is covered in gold filigree, amber studs and interlaced animals. It would have fastened a heavy cloak at the shoulder of a king, a queen or a bishop, and it was designed to be seen from across a hall. The brooch takes its name from Hunterston in Ayrshire, where it was found in 1830, but it was almost certainly made in Ireland or in the west of Scotland, in the same world that produced the Book of Kells.
Look at the detail with the magnifier if one is provided. The panels of gold wire, twisted and soldered into tiny beasts and knots, are so fine that the workmanship was not matched until modern times. The design combines Celtic spirals, Anglo Saxon style animal interlace and a central cross, a mix that shows how ideas travelled between Ireland, Northumbria and the Picts. At the top of the ring the terminals do not meet, in the manner of a penannular brooch, but the gap has been closed with a decorated bar, which makes this a pseudo penannular brooch, a type that became fashionable in Ireland. Turn to the back, if the display allows: it is plain silver, with an inscription.
That inscription is the memorable part. It was scratched on the back around three hundred years after the brooch was made, in Norse runes, and it reads: Melbrigda owns this brooch. Melbrigda is a Gaelic name, so we are looking at a Gaelic speaker in a Viking Age community who used runes and who was proud to own an heirloom already centuries old. The brooch came to the museum in 1830 after a dispute over ownership between the finders and the landowner. It matters as a masterpiece of early medieval craft and as a rare object with a recorded owner.
Did You Know? A runic inscription scratched on the back around the year one thousand says Melbrigda owns this brooch.
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