One Designer Jewellers Much-loved Source of Ideas
At the time Orkney jewellery designer Ola Gorie designed her initial brooches depicting Orkney’s heritage the pieces were viewed as unusual jewellery as she was obviously a innovator among jewellery designers. Her very first piece of unusual jewellery, the Maeshowe Dragon, included graffiti etched by Viking tomb raiders.
This brooch is recognised as iconic and has now been popular for in excess of half a century, so is not anymore unusual jewellery, much more a ‘must have’ classic right now. And additional jewellery designers have adopted Ola’s lead and turned to heritage for ideas.
The Maeshowe Dragon was carved by a young Viking on his way home from the Crusades approximately a thousand years ago. It was found inside the Maeshowe Neolithic tomb that’s 5,000 years old. The dragon is situated alongside the very best selection of Norse runic designs and carvings outside Scandinavia.
Orkney has various other illustrations of graffiti dating from the 18th to the 21st centuries. An archaeologist in Orkney, Antonia Thomas, is currently studying rock art included in her PhD examining ‘Inscription as Social Practice: Orkney’s Rock-Art and Graffiti’. She’s recently been looking at 19th century graffiti inside the Neolithic Unstan tomb close to Stromness in Orkney. Monuments bear symbols with names and dates coming from visitors, however these are less likely to motivate unusual jewellery creations from jewellery designers. She has found out that 120 years ago there had been a large craze in heritage tourism with visitors voyaging long distances to observe Orkney’s unique geology and archaeology.
The Unstan Tomb was opened in 1884 when there was a vast quantity of antiquarian activity around the world. People sought out fossils and prehistoric artefacts which produced the tourism boom for the islands.
Amongst the names etched in the rocks are illustrations from Edinburgh and even Keighley in Yorkshire. Sam W Wells left his mark in 1890 and Antonia is attempting to understand more about this very early traveller. She has found a few clues through common census and business directory searches. He was a brass and iron foundry owner in the town of Keighley. She wonders why he travelled to Orkney – for business, pleasure or to see good friends?
Nowadays, of course, any individual defacing ancient monuments with their name may be prosecuted. This would be regarded as an act of criminal damage. Four years ago a holiday-maker scrawled a message on a bed in an ancient stone house in Skara Brae, declaring XXX slept here, as well as the date. Police matched up the name to the owner of a car who was simply visiting and caught up with him as he boarded the ferry going back to the mainland. His marks were not left on the Neolithic monument for archaeologists of the future to uncover – he was made to remove them personally!
However the older markings are important indications that show us about the men and women that traveled to the monuments and also raise interesting questions about social history, say the archaeologists. And the Viking graffiti along with the dragon image are now a part of the attraction of seeing the Maeshowe chambered cairn, that was excavated in 1861.
Unusual Jewellery Derived From Viking Artwork
The 30 inscriptions within Maeshowe cairn, ensure it is one of the major, and most famous, collections of runes identified in Europe. The Orkneyinga Saga recounts that more than 800 years back a group of Viking warriors had looked for shelter from a bad snowstorm. Whilst they were waiting inside of the stone chamber for that storm to clear they etched graffiti into the stone walls. A large number of crude designs show up in finer form in Viking jewellery products.
A great deal of the writing is boastful. It contains personal references to skilful rune carving with many names as well as to the attractiveness of a woman referred to as Ingibiorg. Ola Gorie in addition has designed a jewellery collection which bears this particular Viking lady’s name. A different Norse group of soldiers later also left their marks over the walls. However, if the Vikings were looking for treasure, they would undoubtedly have been unhappy.
However, the legacies of these inscriptions are treasures in on their own now. Guides for the tomb showcase the extraordinary runes by torchlight. And jewellery designers Ola Gorie have created two collections of unusual jewellery inspired by the Norse warriors’ etchings. These ancient Vikings have most definitely left their mark.
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