Ancient Rings of Scotland

It has been on my mind for a while now to write a wee blurb or blog for my website that goes hand in hand with what I create and what inspires me, the best place to start would be on the subject of rings.  

What kind of rings did the Picts wear, and what evidence can we gather from various sources to have a rough idea of this? Frankly, not much. 

Compared to neighbouring cultures such as the Anglo Saxons and Vikings there are very few rings that we can say “yes, this is 100% a Pictish ring”. However, we do have three pieces of evidence from two unique but potentially connected sources that can help us come to a conclusion that at least One Ring (ha ha) can be confidentially confirmed as Pictish, with enough evidence from a complete mould half to confidentially recreate a second pretty much exactly how it would have looked when cast and removed from the mould. 

This first ring in particular I will speak about is the ring recently discovered by a volunteer at Burghead, Moray during excavations by the University of Aberdeen. 

The Burghead Ring. Image credit: National Museum of Scotland
 
I of course couldn’t help myself but create my own replica of this ring. I was so excited about it I had a wax prototype carved and cast within a day of the original article about the ring and its discovery being published. 

It is assumed but as far as I know not confirmed that the central stone is garnet. Based on the measurements of the original ring the stone can be no more than 5 by 3 millimetres (probably even smaller). So I found some stones that would fit and could be set before I carved a new ring that would fit these stones. 

The original ring was clearly worn and loved, and anyone who has worn jewellery for a number of years will notice that the metal does wear down so I did use a bit of assumption to restore some of the details to what they most likely would have looked like when it was first made. Therefore it’s not so much a “replica” as it is a reconstruction though the defects may just be from the casting process.

   

Above: Wax carving process from start to finish.

 

Our Burghead Ring

Further evidence to this now widely known find is the fragmentary object that is undoubtedly a very similar ring found a year later during excavations, again at Burghead.

Image credit: Northern Picts Project

 Finally this mould fragment from the Pictish occupation at the Brough of Birsay in Orkney bearing an impression that is undoubtedly of the same style of ring as the Burghead find, and maybe one day the museum will put the ring in the mould fragment and discover that this ring was perhaps actually made at the Brough of Birsay! 

Image credit: Pictish and Norse finds from the Brough of Birsay 1934-74

While editing this article this ring found recently in the York area came to my attention which I believe is worth mentioning here. I will update more once I know more but here it is. The similarities to the Burghead ring speak for themselves. We do know that there was some connection with the Anglo Saxon culture in Burghead due to a silver Trewhiddle style drinking horn terminal and two coins of Alfred the Great found during excavations at the site so this could perhaps be evidence of a Pictish trade with the Northern Angles or even a Viking connection with Jorvik who would have easily had access to Anglo Saxon silver to trade with the Picts. 

 

 

Image credit: Andy Gee. Many thanks for providing photos and information about this ring.

A plain finger ring found at Burghead and a matching mould from Birsay also provides extra possible evidence of a connection but of course it could just be a piece of harness fitting and not jewellery. I have made myself a similar ring to go with my grouping of Birsay/Burghead reproductions but the simplicity of the ring does cast too many doubts on its purpose as a piece of jewellery.

 

 

Left image credit: The Northern Picts Project. Right image: Pictish and Norse finds from the Brough of Birsay 1934-74

The Iona Abbey Ring 

We have a ring bezel from Iona which is similar in shape to the Burghead ring. Is it related? Probably not, though there is an obvious similarity in its rough lozenge shape and central gem setting. The Burghead ring appears to be a singular cast piece from base metal while the Iona ring is certainly much more complicated in design, involving silver and gold filigree beaded wire and granulation with the central gold section riveted in place with silver rivets. The shank of the ring is sadly lost so I had to invent one. I looked at the thick shank on the Nene River ring for inspiration and I believe that was probably somewhat in the right direction. (The Nene river ring also has groupings of triple knobs just like the Burghead ring which is what made me think to use it as inspiration).

 My reproduction pictured below took no less than 25 individual components not including the beading in the central gold setting, so this was a very sophisticated piece of work and I am not ashamed to admit the original artefact is far superior in construction to mine. 

 What I believe is interesting is the contrast in how a precious stone like garnet could be used in a copper alloy ring, yet glass was used in the gold centre of a silver ring. Of course, glass was much more valued back then than it is now, but I still assume the garnet probably travelled much further to find its final resting place than the glass. 

Original ring bezel from Iona 

 

My own attempt at a reproduction using the same techniques to the best of my knowledge.

 

Despite the similarities between the Iona Abbey Ring bezel and the Burghead rings, I certainly don’t consider it Pictish and I’m sure nobody else does. Origins from the bezel have ranged from Anglo Saxon to Irish. 

The Birsay Ring 

 

Image credit: Pictish and Norse finds from the Brough of Birsay 1934-74

Another Pictish ring can almost certainly be derived from the other ring mould from the Brough of Birsay. This is a perfect mould half from Pictish and Norse finds from the Brough of Birsay 1934-74 now on display in The Orkney museum in Kirkwall.

 
It’s so obvious what the final ring  is meant to be. I had little difficulty in carving what I believe the ring would have looked like when cracked out of the mould. 

 

Gorgeous isn’t it? It’s like a wee raspberry or something. 

 

Finally on the subject of mould fragments we also have a curious mould fragment from Dundurn hillfort in Perthshire. 

Image credit: https://scarf.scot/regional/pkarf/early-medieval/6-4-landscape-and-settlement/6-4-2-high-status-sites/

Now it’s almost certain this is a mould for making a pin head since there only appears to be a shank on one side, but it did remind me of the Burghead ring, so I reconstructed it as a ring also and set it with garnet. This is certainly what can be classed as a “fantasy” piece but I have taken into consideration that there are examples of insular hand pins that have had their shanks bent fully round to be turned into finger rings and while hand pins do generally slightly pre-date the Pictish period, they have been found in Pictish silver hoards like Gaulcross and Norries Law and mould fragments for their construction have been found at Rhynie. I also constructed the ring in a way that the shank can be cut off on one side of the head and hammered out into a pin. Easy multi-purpose!

So what else? 

 

Between the Burghead and Birsay rings, fragments and moulds, and the other rings or potential rings mentioned above there are very few objects that can be 100% confirmed as Pictish rings. I.E. rings that belong in the context of the mostly North and Eastern regions of early medieval Scotland and what is now most commonly considered “Pictish”. There are plenty of examples of Iron age rings from across Scotland, many of which are found in the areas I am talking about but maybe a bit too early for the purposes of this article. I will certainly do a further study on Ancient Rings of Scotland in the future and will look at more examples from the iron age and pick out some of the more interesting rings from other cultures in Scotland’s history.  

I will give a few examples based on Pictish hoards, and chance finds. They’re probably not “Pictish” I.E. a Pict never made them...but maybe they did? Maybe they were worn for generations of Picts? We will, of course likely never know, but I feel like they deserve an honourable mention in an article talking about Pictish rings. 

 

Norse rings from Birsay. Image credit: Pictish and Norse finds from the Brough of Birsay 1934-74. Probably not related in any way to the Pictish levels of the excavations but since Birsay is such an important location featured in this article I believe they deserve a brief acknowledgement here.

 

Spiral ring from the Norries Law hoard. Image credit: National Museum of Scotland

Similar triple coiled rings have been found in Scotland at Trapain Law, Newstead, Lamberton, Sanday and Birsay, but also in many other locations across Great Britain, often in a Roman context so it’s hard to superficially class the style as Pictish. They do however appear in many contexts that fit so I don’t think it’s out of place within the confines of this article at all, especially since this particular ring was found in a Pictish hoard.  

For other rings in Scotland we also have runic Anglo Saxon rings, like the one found at Crammond, twisted Viking rings in gold and silver along with older rings from the Roman period and Iron Age where it’s a bit harder to really confirm any definite or even theoretical connection to the Picts. I was about to write about some of those here and even made a few reproductions such as these Roman rings from Culbin Sands in Moray and a Viking ring from Uist but I feel this article was  getting excessive and off track and this would be a good place to end it. This will be more appropriate in my next article about Ancient Rings of Scotland where I will pay more attention to non Pictish finds. 

 

    

First image credit: National Museum of Scotland

 

In conclusion, I just want to write about something I find interesting and add my own thoughts and theories to it. I hope I at least drew some attention to these interesting artefacts more than anything else and that it was a bit informative to anyone who has a newly found interest in Pictish Jewellery.  I am an artist who likes to create things with my hands though, not an academic so take my words as my own thoughts and opinions and not as the words of an authority on the subject.

If you are interested in reading more, doing your own research, or if you genuinely just know better please feel free to tell me what you think in the comment section, which I will respond to. I do suggest you to read up on documents such as “Pictish and Norse finds from the Brough of Birsay 1934-74” and any further documents produced by the Northern Picts Project if you want to get a better understanding for the context of these finds I have focused on.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to check out my versions of the rings mentioned above, please visit our Ancient Rings of Scotland collection.

With the kindest regards,

Nicholas Waugh