| Lochar Moss Torc | |
|---|---|
 Lochar Moss Torc in the British Museum | |
| Material | Brass |
| Size | 16 cm diameter |
| Created | c. 50-200 AD |
| Present location | British Museum, London |
| Registration | P&EE 1853.11-5.2 |
The Lochar Moss Torc is an Iron Age brass torc or neck-ring found in Lochar Moss, near Dumfries in Scotland. It was found by chance in the early nineteenth century and was later donated to the British Museum. [1]
Lochar Moss, located on the Solway Firth in southwest Scotland, was one of the largest raised peat lands in Europe until much of it was destroyed and reclaimed for agricultural and urban uses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was in the 1840s that two Iron Age objects, a bowl and torc, were accidentally unearthed during peat-cutting. Most scholars suggest that the two items were deliberately deposited in the bog as a votive or religious offering. They later came in to the possession of a local collector called Thomas Gray, who presented them both to the British Museum in 1853. [2]
The Lochar Moss Torc was found inside a small bronze bowl, which helped to preserve it relatively intact. The collar is made of brass and is cast in two pieces: a solid crescent-shaped bar with engraved La Tène patterns and a series of hollow beads, one of which is missing. Although it was without doubt a prestigious item of jewellery that was cherished by the local community, it remains unclear who it originally belonged to and how the collar would have been worn by the wearer. The design of this type of neck-ring is unique to northern Britain during the early stages of the Roman colonisation of the province of Britannia.
Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II and as Pete Marsh, is the preserved bog body of a man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow in Cheshire, North West England. The remains were found on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat cutters. Lindow Man is not the only bog body to have been found in the moss; Lindow Woman was discovered the year before, and other body parts have also been recovered. The find was described as "one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 1980s" and caused a media sensation. It helped invigorate study of British bog bodies, which had previously been neglected.
A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large rigid or stiff neck ring in metal, made either as a single piece or from strands twisted together. The great majority are open at the front, although some had hook and ring closures and a few had mortice and tenon locking catches to close them. Many seem designed for near-permanent wear and would have been difficult to remove. Torcs are found in the Scythian, Illyrian, Thracian, Celtic, and other cultures of the European Iron Age from around the 8th century BC to the 3rd century AD. For the Iron Age Celts, the gold torc seems to have been a key object. It identifies the wearer as a person of high rank, and many of the finest works of ancient Celtic art are torcs. The Celtic torc disappears in the Migration Period, but during the Viking Age torc-style metal necklaces, now mainly in silver, came back into fashion. Torc styles of neck-ring are found as part of the jewellery styles of various other cultures and periods.
The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD, or more narrowly between 150 BC and 1 BC. This places it within the late La Tène period or early Roman Iron Age. The cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work. It was found dismantled, with the other pieces stacked inside the base, in 1891, in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark. It is now usually on display in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, with replicas at other museums; during 2015–16, it was in the UK on a travelling exhibition called The Celts.
Celtic art is associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic languages.
Llyn Cerrig Bach is a small lake located between Rhosneigr and Valley in the west of Anglesey, Wales.
The prehistory of Ireland has been pieced together from archaeological evidence, which has grown at an increasing rate over the last decades. It begins with the first evidence of permanent human residence in Ireland around 10,500 BC and finishes with the start of the historical record around 400 AD. Both the beginning and end dates of the period are later than for much of Europe and all of the Near East. The prehistoric period covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age societies of Ireland. For much of Europe, the historical record begins when the Romans invaded; as Ireland was not invaded by the Romans its historical record starts later, with the coming of Christianity.
The Gold lunula is a distinctive type of late Neolithic, Chalcolithic or early Bronze Age necklace or collar shaped like a crescent moon. They are normally flat and thin, with roundish spatulate terminals that are often twisted to 45 to 90 degrees from the plane of the body. Gold lunulae fall into three distinct groups, termed Classical, Unaccomplished and Provincial by archaeologists. Most have been found in Ireland, but there are moderate numbers in other parts of Europe as well, from Great Britain to areas of the continent fairly near the Atlantic coasts. Although no lunula has been directly dated, from associations with other artefacts it is thought they were being made sometime in the period between 2400–2000 BC; a wooden box associated with one Irish find has recently given a radiocarbon dating range of 2460–2040 BC.
The Broighter Gold or more correctly, the Broighter Hoard, is a hoard of gold artefacts from the Iron Age of the 1st century BC that were found in 1896 by Tom Nicholl and James Morrow on farmland near Limavady, in the north of Ireland. The hoard includes a 7-inch-long (18 cm) gold boat, a gold torc and bowl and some other jewellery.
The Newark Torc is a complete Iron Age gold alloy torc found by a metal detectorist on the outskirts of Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England, in February 2005.
The National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology is a branch of the National Museum of Ireland located on Kildare Street in Dublin, Ireland, that specialises in Irish and other antiquities dating from the Stone Age to the Late Middle Ages.
Gold working in the Bronze Age British Isles refers to the use of gold to produce ornaments and other prestige items in the British Isles during the Bronze Age, between circa 2500 and c.800 BCE in Britain, and up to about 550 BCE in Ireland. In this period, communities in Britain and Ireland first learned how to work metal, leading to the widespread creation of not only gold but also copper and bronze items as well. Gold artefacts in particular were prestige items used to designate the high status of those individuals who wore, or were buried with them.
Art in Medieval Scotland includes all forms of artistic production within the modern borders of Scotland, between the fifth century and the adoption of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. In the early Middle Ages, there were distinct material cultures evident in the different federations and kingdoms within what is now Scotland. Pictish art was the only uniquely Scottish Medieval style; it can be seen in the extensive survival of carved stones, particularly in the north and east of the country, which hold a variety of recurring images and patterns. It can also be seen in elaborate metal work that largely survives in buried hoards. Irish-Scots art from the kingdom of Dál Riata suggests that it was one of the places, as a crossroads between cultures, where the Insular style developed.
Prehistoric art in Scotland is visual art created or found within the modern borders of Scotland, before the departure of the Romans from southern and central Britain in the early fifth century CE, which is usually seen as the beginning of the early historic or Medieval era. There is no clear definition of prehistoric art among scholars and objects that may involve creativity often lack a context that would allow them to be understood.
The Cordoba Treasure, or Tesoro de Córdoba in Spanish, is the name of a major Iron Age silver hoard found on the outskirts of the city of Córdoba, Spain in 1915. The entire treasure was purchased by the British Museum in 1932, where it has been on public display ever since.
The Ourense Torcs are a pair of Iron Age gold torc neck rings found near Ourense in Northwest Spain in the 1950s. They were acquired by the British Museum in 1960.
Sculpture in Scotland includes all visual arts operating in three dimensions in the borders of modern Scotland. Durable sculptural processes traditionally include carving and modelling, in stone, metal, clay, wood and other materials. In the modern era these were joined by assembly by welding, modelling, moulding and casting. Some installation art can also be considered to be sculpture. The earliest surviving sculptures from Scotland are standing stones and circles from around 3000 BCE. The oldest portable visual art are carved-stone petrospheres and the Westray Wife is the earliest representation of a human face found in Scotland. From the Bronze Age there are extensive examples of rock art, including cup and ring marks and elaborate carved stone battle-axes. By the early Iron Age Scotland had been penetrated by the wider European La Tène culture, and a few examples of decoration survive from Scotland. There are also decorated torcs, scabbards, armlets and war trumpets. The Romans began military expeditions into what is now Scotland from about 71 CE, leaving a direct sculptural legacy of distance slabs, altars and other sculptures.
The Great Torc from Snettisham or Snettisham Great Torc is a large Iron Age torc or neck ring in electrum, from the 1st century BC. It is one of the finest pieces of early Celtic art in a distinctly British Celtic style. It is the most spectacular object in the Snettisham Hoard of torcs and other metalwork found in 1950 near the village of Snettisham in Norfolk, East Anglia. The perfectly intact torc is outstanding for its high level of craftsmanship and superb artistry. Soon after its discovery it was acquired by the British Museum.
The Bedale Hoard is a hoard of forty-eight silver and gold items dating from the late 9th to early 10th century AD and includes necklaces, arm-bands, a sword pommel, hacksilver and ingots. It was discovered on 22 May 2012 in a field near Bedale, North Yorkshire by metal detectorists, and reported via the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Following a successful public funding campaign, the hoard was acquired by the Yorkshire Museum for £50,000.
The Leekfrith torcs are four Iron Age gold torcs found by two hobby metal detectorists in December 2016 in a field in Leekfrith, north Staffordshire, England. The find consists of three neck torcs and a smaller bracelet, which were located in proximity to each other. They are believed to be the oldest Iron Age gold jewellery found in Britain. Subsequent archaeological examination of the area did not uncover further objects.
Lochar may refer to: