Bute Museum
Bute’s Jet Necklace circa 2000 BC
One of the
many treasures of the Bute Museum is the spectacular jet spacer plate necklace,
excavated in 1960 from a cist on the island of Inchmarnock,
off the west coast of Bute.
The
necklace has recently been restrung by Dr Alison Sheridan of the Museum of
Scotland. Studies of each individual component of the necklace have produced
very interesting results. It is now known, for example, that the necklace
is made of Whitby jet rather than local lignite and that it had
been assembled from parts of a number of different necklaces.
The
information from the necklace was so informative that it was decided to
re-excavate the cist and examine the remains using up-to-date techniques. Not
all of the results are back from the lab but much information has already been
gained. At the time of the original excavation, the date given for the burial
was around 1500 BC this has been pushed back to around 2000 BC.
Information should shortly be available on the diet and origin of the 'Queen of
the Inch'.
Bute and the Necklace feature on BBC
Radio Scotland’s Past Lives
11.30 a.m. on Tuesday August 14th 2007
Radio
Scotland's 'Past Lives' series visited the Museum and presenter Mark Stephen and curator Anne Speirs discussed the necklace and the 2006 excavation.
Alison Sheridan gave the up-to-the-minute information on the necklace and the
result of the analyses of the remains.
|
|
||
|
Please email comments to: webmaster@butemuseum.org |
Page last modified 11/08/2007 |
|
