A Lost Hoard of Viking Age Silver From An
A Lost Hoard of Viking Age Silver From An
A Lost Hoard of Viking Age Silver From An
A Lost Hoard of Viking-Age Silver from Magheralagan, County Down Author(s): C. S. Briggs and J. A. Graham-Campbell Reviewed work(s): Source: Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Third Series, Vol. 39 (1976), pp. 20-24 Published by: Ulster Archaeological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20567766 . Accessed: 28/02/2012 15:54
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antiquarian papers of themid-nineteenth century. The present whereabouts of the discovery are
the precise ascription a coin to a Baghdad
arm-ring, demonstrate that thiswas amixed Viking-Age silver hoard - thefirston recordfrom Co. Down. Nineteenth-century sources The following is a transcript of one of several letters from Thomas Benn of Belfast to John Lindsay, the Cork antiquary and numismatist, which have been brought to our notice by Pro fessor Michael Dolley.1 It is dated 'Belfast, 18 June 1845'. 'My dear Sir, I received your much esteemed letter of 14th enclosing the 16th plate of the Scotch Work,
and the 4 coins mentioned, for which I am very much obliged to you, and return you my best to have it in my power to recip thanks, hoping
legible isKirk; perhaps it is some of the Town pieces referred to by Simon whs book I have
now at the moment No. 3 is probably before me. one of the ecclesiastical
Yours Very Truly, Thomas H. Benn. Addressing Lindsay in a later letter on 23 December, Benn related how he had just received
a letter from Martin
rocate your kindness. I visited Downpatrick yesterday and availed myself of the opportunity to reinspectMr Jas. Martin's Collection; he has some good coins, and other valuable Antiquities, but of the former none of peculiar rarity; however, I took impressions of 4 coins, which I beg to enclose
herein (and of which I have also retained
'in whose possession the Cufic coin is; and I have thismorning recd his replywhich is inter
esting, terms and I beg to enclose it for your perusal. not I
be particular about rarity'. The subsequent fate of the kufic coin would be
uncertain ters in if itwere the C. of not for the recent discovery of Denmark, to the Danish as of of
seen anything precisely like it, at first I thought it resembled some Eastern /page 2/ or other foreign coinage, especially from its having a very antique appearance, and from having a single hole perforated through it,Mr Martin
however assures me that it was found some called Magheralaggan years ago at a place from Down,2 some about 3 miles along with others, of the same kind (but in a very mutilated
Northern Antiquaries, J. J.A. Worsaae. Among Worsaae's Irish correspondents were Carruthers, Clibborn Todd, Petrie, Lindsay and Sainthill. Three of the letters are from Sainthill. The first,
dated whilst 5th December Worsaae was 1846, staying is addressed with the Rev. to Dr J. H.
(Aquilla) Smith, and was presumably written Todd, inTrinity College Dublin, during his study tour of the British Isles, 1846-47.4 The letter lists the three kufic coins then inSainthill's possession,
though recording none of their find-spots. In a
and decayed condition), also some silver rings, of very rude workmanship and some ingots of
silver. No. have 2 is a coin which supposed to be on first view or I should of
a medal,
counter
20
postscript, Sainthill directed Smith to tell Worsaae that he (Sainthill) was negotiating the acquisition
of a kufic coin from the north of Ireland. The
coins
postscript runs:
'Tell Mr Wthat a Dirheim of Al Mahdi Marsden' Plate 3 Coin 31 - coined at Baghdad AH 168 A.D. 784 - was found in the North of - which, Ireland I am endeavouring to get
in the hoard. present 'some silver rings, of very rude work Benn's manship and some ingots of silver' do not equate
exactly with Sainthilrs 'aquantity of fragments of silver rings, and one ring perfect' unless the sup
posed contents ingots of are in fact fragments as follows: of one rings. It is,
writing to you, as Iwas in treaty for a of one of the early Khalifs, Dirheim of the race of Al Abbas, which was found about 12 years since at Magheralaggan, about 3 miles west of - with another of Down Downpatrick, County similar coin and a great many cut fragments, - and also a quantity into halves and quarters of of silver rings, and one ring perfect fragments
'I delayed
silver ring, some fragments of others, and possibly some ingots. This combination of kufic coins with a complete silver ornament, hacksilver and ?ingots is well known in Scandinavian hoards of Viking-Age
date, but the information available on the coin and arm-ring enables a closer Magheralagan estimate of the deposition-date of this hoard to be
made. The coin Sainthill identifies the Magheralagan kufic coin by reference to'Marsden Plate 3 Coin 31'.Marsden'" copied his original inaccurately and the coin
should be dated A.H. 162 and not 168 as Sainthill
believed. Mr Nicholas Lowick (Dept of Coins and Medals, British Museum) has kindly provided the following correct description: Xbbasid dirham of al-Mahdt_(A.H. 158
69/A.D. 775-85), minted at Madinat al-Salam
The arm-ring
in form and is penannular silver arm-ring of a broad band of silver with consists stamped consists on its outer face. This ornament ornament a cir with transverse of vertical lines, executed with a number of fields cular punch, interspersed which are randomly stamped with a punch shaped a triangle - a in the form of a lozenge suritounting The
ring establish that it belongs to the recently defined Hiberno-Viking arm-ring type of c. 850
950 (Graham-Campbell for 1976, 51-2). Parallels are numerous of the ornament the lay-out (e.g. whilst the 1915, pl. xxv, Armstrong 2-7),
Viking-Age silver ring is known from Co. Down (Graham-Campbell 1976, Appendices C and D).9 Contents of hoard
The above sources hoard demonstrate contained two that the Magheralagan complete
21
* O A A * O
COIN - HOARD COIN - HOARD (Co.provenance only) MIXED HOARD MIXED HOARD (Co. provenance only) COINLESS HOARD COINLESS HOARD
Ag
sv
had
o S
C-9
Fig.
1.
D)istribution
of provenanced
Viking-Age
silver
hoards
of Scandinavian
type
from
Ireland.
Deposition date All other known coin-hoards containing kufic coins from Britain and Irelandwere deposited in
the period c. 875-c. 975, with the majority depo
Comments
records
~~~~~~~>~~~~~~~ O ~~~~~~~~50 kms sited during the thirty-five years between 900 and
Campbell 1976, Appendix C).
It is only the fifth coin-hoard importance. to have contained Ireland known ornaments It is a valuable
and/or hack-silver, other than ingots (Graham addition to the growing number of kufic coin hoards known from Ireland (Appendix) and, as Professor Dolley has commented (personal com munication), 'there seems no formal reason why
one this should not be a ninth-century of the earliest from Ireland'. hoard, and so
tury, but which then becomes markedly scarcer. hoards containing All known coin-dated Hiberno-Viking arm-rings fallwithin the bracket
c. 875-c. On 930. these grounds, a deposition date in the late
Co.
Down
the only
other
hoard
being
that of
Appendix:
(after Dolley
1976)
Drogheda, Co. Louth Co. Dublin Glasnevin, Dunmore Cave, Co. Kilkenny Co. Kildare Co. Meath Magheralagan, Co. Down Co. Derry c. 905 c. 927 c. 929 c. 935 c. 970 late 9th/early 10th C. late 9th/10th C.
somewhat surprising gap in the distribution of The only other recorded findsof silver fromCo. Down are two ingots in theNational Museum of Ireland. These are described respectively as hav ingbeen 'Found in the county Down' (Armstrong 1915, 290:W.1), and 'Procured from the county Down. (Dawson Collection)' (ibid., 291:W.4); no further information is available.'2 Either ingot
could have derived from the Magheralagan hoard, as might have the ring and armlet of silver exhi in Belfast bited in 1852 of by James Martin
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are most grateful to Professor Michael Dol ley (Queen's University, Belfast) and Mr Nicholas Low ick (British Museum) for their advice and comments. We also wish to thank for their assistance Mr George Boon (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff), Mrs Brigid Dolan (Royal Irish Academy, Dublin), Mr John Hop kins (Society of Antiquaries, London), and Fru Fritze Lindahl (National Museum of Antiquities of Denmark, Copenhagen). P1. VII is reproduced by permission of the Royal Irish and was taken by Mr Albert Glaholm Academy, (Uni versity College, Dublin). The map was drawn by Mrs Eva Wilson.
nineteenth-century letters and papers, preserved in the Royal IrishAcademy and elsewhere, will undoubtedly bring to lightother such'new' finds if not further information on the Magheralagan hoard.
NOTES 1. The originals form part of a run of Lindsay cor from Sainthill and Windele, respondence, mostly now in the possession of Hunter of Hunterston, and to Professor Dolley made available through the good offices of Col. and Mrs J. K. R. Murray of are in his pos A set of photostats Cheltenham. session and full publication is planned over the next few years. townland (which appears in the cor Magheralagan as Magheralaggan) lies some 3 miles respondence SSW. of Downpatrick (grid r?f. J 4343/4). Professor Dolley points out that the piece is almost coin certainly one of the mid-eighteenth-century weights put out by the London maker John Kirk who frequently signed his products (1724-1776), KIRK below the busts copied from the coins associ ated with the weights in question. to January Worsaae was in Dublin from November in his published letters, En 1846-7, as recorded (ed. V. Hermansen, Erindringer Oldgrandskers 1934), 317-44. Copenhagen, W. Marsden's great work, which was privately printed in two parts, is entitled Numismata Orien talia Illustrata. The oriental coins, ancient and mod em in his collection, described and historically illus trated. With numerous plates, from drawings made under his inspection (London, 1823, 1825). 6. There is now no enclosure with this letter, nor is the in the Department of Coins and coin identifiable of Denmark. Medals, National Museum was a Cork wine 7. Richard Sainthili (1787-1869) the formal education beyond shipper without grammar-school. 135. 8. R.I.A. ms. 12.C.l,p. 9. This arm-ring is that listed previously by Graham Campbell (1976, Appendix D) as a single-find from Downpatrick. 10. Op. cit. in note 5. 11. This new map is based on Graham-Campbell 1976, maps 2 and 3, with the addition of two recent finds of coinless hoards from Co. Cavan and Co. Meath. that there 12. Dr A. T. Lucas has kindty confirmed for these appears to be no further documentation pieces in the National Museum of Ireland. 13. Descriptive of Anti Catalogue of the Collection . . . exhibited in the quities and other objects Museum (Belfast, 1852), at a meeting of the British Association.
2.
3.
4.
5.
23
BIBLIOGRAPHY E. C. R. (1915). Armstrong, 'Catalogue of the silver and ecclesiastical antiquities in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy', Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., 32C (1915), 287-312. Coins in the Dolley, M. (1966). The Hiberno-Norse British Museum (British Museum, London, 1966). J. A. The Viking-Age Graham-Campbell, (1976). hoards of Ireland', in ed. B. Almquist and D. silver Greene, Proceedings of the Seventh Viking Con gress (Dublin, 1976), 39-74. ' Hall, R. (1973). A hoard of Viking silver bracelets from Co. Mayo', J. Roy. Soc Antiq. Ire Cushalogurt, land, 103 (1973), 78-85. ' coin finds Hall, R. (1973-4). A check list of Viking-Age from Ireland', Ulster J. ArchaeoL, 36-7 (1973-4), 71-86. Marsden, W. (1823, 1825). Numismata Orientalia Illus trata, 2 vols (London, 1823 and 1825). Raftery, J. (1969). 'A hoard of Viking silver bracelets from Co. Donegal',7. Roy. Soc. Antiq. Ireland, 99 (1969), 133-6. Stenberger, M. (1958). Die Schatzfunde gotlands der vol. 1 (Stockholm, 1958). Wikingerzeit,
24
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