Silver hoard from Norrie's Law
The Norrie's Law silver hoard was found in a Bronze Age burial mound on Balman Farm, a mile north of Mount Largo Law, in County Fife on the north bank of the Firth of Forth in Scotland . Nearby are the Wemyss Caves .
Legend has it that the hill has to do with the burial of the Danish warrior Norroway in silver armor.
In the 1830s, Lady Durham donated various pieces of precious silver to the Scottish Museum of Antiques. These are large ring brooches, two leaf and diamond-shaped tablets, a large silver disc, a bowl, finger rings and a large number of pieces of bracelet. The two boards and one of the badges bear characteristic symbols such as a double disc and Z-rod and a deer (possibly a dog). This is one of the few examples of using the symbols on a carrier material other than stone ( Pictish symbol stone ).
The Pictish silver objects and some late Roman elements were found around 1819 during sand mining. Most parts of the hoard, estimated at 12.5 kg, including a number of silver coins, have been sold to a local goldsmith and melted down. Only a few pieces remained. The dating took place in the 7th century.
literature
- Susan Young: The Work of Angels - Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork: 6th to 9th Centuries . University of Texas Press; 1989 ISBN 0292790589 .
- James Graham-Campbell: Norrie's Law, Fife: on the nature and dating of the silver hoard . Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Vol. 121, 1991, pp. 241-259. Digitized version ( memento from June 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.7 MB).
- James Graham-Campbell: Pictish Silver: Status and Symbol . In: HM Chadwick Memorial Lectures 13. Cambridge 2002.
