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An Irish crozier-head found near Stockholm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Extract

In the summer of 1954 the archaeological investigation of a habitation-site of the second half of the first millennium A.D. began on a little island about 30 kilometres west of Stockholm in Lake Mälar. The island, known as Lillö, lies in Ekerö parish in the province of Uppland. The resultant finds were extraordinarily rich and interesting, and the outcome of the investigations now in progress, which will take in also a number of small burial-grounds connected with the habitation-site, is awaited with some excitement.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1955

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References

page 46 note 2 I am greatly indebted to the Society of Antiquaries for accepting this paper for publication in the Antiquaries Journal.

page 47 note 1 Discussed by Henry, Françoise, Early Christian Art (Dublin, 1954), pp. 44 ff.Google Scholar, pls. 34–36; and elsewhere. See also Mahr, A., Christian Art in Ancient Ireland, vol. i (Dublin, 1932), pls. 25, 26Google Scholar.

page 48 note 1 The eyes of the face-masks in one of the St. Germain objects appear to be shut, whilst on the other they are open and active.

page 48 note 2 See Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland, Part V (Jan Petersen; Oslo, 1940), p. 61Google Scholar, fig.67, a, b. Cf. also Mahr, op.cit., pl. 32, 1a and b.

page 48 note 3 Viking Antiquities, Part V, p. 69, fig. 76; Mahr, op. cit., pl. 19. 9.

page 48 note 4 Viking Antiquities, Part V, p. 75, fig. 86; Mahr, op. cit., pl. 32, 3.

page 49 note 1 Various other instances in which objects, and in particular their profiles, are enlivened with modelled details of different kinds could of course be produced; in most cases these plastic elements are animal-heads, but in some cases they are settings with inlays and the like. Cf. Mahr, op. cit., pls. 13.4; 20. 1; 22, 1–2; 23, 2–3, etc.

page 49 note 2 This group has been discussed in detail by Dr.Henry, Françoise in her paper “Hanging Bowls”, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, lxvi (1936), 239 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 49 note 3 See S. Grieg, Osebergfundet, vol. ii (Oslo, 1928), pp. 72 ff., figs. 32 and 33.

page 49 note 4 This characteristic modelling of the human head also recurs so frequently amongst Irish-found works of art that doubts about its origin are hardly admissible. Cf. Mahr, op. cit., pl. 28. See also Ettinger, E., “The Stone Sculptures on White Island, Lower Lough Erne”, Man, 1953, pl. c.Google Scholar

page 49 note 5 That the colour of red enamel can sometimes be virtually eliminated is illustrated by a bronze object in the form of a stag, with champlevé enamel, which is preserved in the National Museum in Dublin (cf. Henry, ”Hanging Bowls”, pl. xxxviii, 3). It belongs to the group of objects that we have been discussing, and like the crozier it has convex blue insets, blue and white millefiori, and yellow enamel in rectilinear cells with borders and surrounds in red enamel. The red colour is, however, in several places extremely weak and almost gone, the colour-tone of the enamel tending to a reddish yellow or yellow tinge. Professor Seán P. Ó Ríordáin of the University of Dublin told me verbally that in a number of cases he had formed the opinion that red enamel had lost its original colour.

page 50 note 1 Grieg, , op. cit., fig. 37Google Scholar; Henry, , “Hanging Bowls”, pl. xxxvi, 6.Google Scholar

page 50 note 2 Grieg, , op. cit., fig. 39Google Scholar; Henry, , “Hanging Bowls”, pl. xxxviii, 2.Google Scholar

page 50 note 3 Cf. Grieg and Henry in the two works just cited. See also Hencken, H. O'Neil, “Ballinderry Crannog”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 1935–7, pp. 204 ff.Google Scholar, where pieces of this kind are discussed.

page 50 note 4 See Françoise Henry, Early Christian Irish Art, pls. 30–31. Cf. also M. Duignan, ‘The Moylough (Co. Sligo) and other Irish Belt-Reliquaries’, Journal of “the Galway Architectural and Historical Society, xxiv. 83 ff.

page 50 note 5 G. Swarzenski has recently reviewed in masterly fashion the different points of view on this problem. See G. Swarzenski, “An Early Anglo-Irish Portable Shrine”, Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Oct. 1954, pp. 50 ff.