One Designer Jewellers Chosen Source of Creativity
When Orkney jewellery designer Ola Gorie created her initial brooches depicting Orkney’s heritage the pieces were deemed unusual jewellery as she was really a founder among jewellery designers. Her 1st piece of unusual jewellery, the Maeshowe Dragon, displayed graffiti etched by Viking tomb raiders.
Now this brooch is regarded as iconic and it has been popular for more than half a century, so is no longer unusual jewellery, more like a ‘must have’ classic now. And additional jewellery designers have followed Ola’s lead and turned to heritage for concepts.
The Maeshowe Dragon was etched by a young Viking on his way home from the Crusades roughly a thousand years in the past. It was found within the Maeshowe Neolithic tomb which happens to be 5,000 years old. The dragon sits alongside the very best assortment of Norse runic carvings outside Scandinavia.
Orkney has various other instances of graffiti dating from the 18th to the 21st centuries. An archaeologist in Orkney, Antonia Thomas, is currently studying rock art as part of her PhD examining ‘Inscription as Social Practice: Orkney’s Rock-Art and Graffiti’. She’s recently been analyzing 19th century graffiti inside Neolithic Unstan tomb near Stromness in Orkney. Monuments bear markings with names and dates from visitors, though these are less likely to inspire unusual jewellery creations from jewellery designers. She’s found out that 120 years back there seemed to be a large fad in heritage tourism with visitors voyaging rather long distances to view Orkney’s amazing geology and archaeology.
The Unstan Tomb was opened up in 1884 when there had been a vast amount of antiquarian activity around the globe. People looked for fossils and prehistoric artefacts and this resulted in the tourism boom for the islands.
Among the list of names etched in the stones are examples from Edinburgh and even Keighley in Yorkshire. Sam W Wells left his mark in 1890 and Antonia is trying to uncover more about this very early tourist. She found a few clues through simple census and trade directory searches. He was actually a brass and iron foundry owner in the town of Keighley. She ponders why he journeyed to Orkney – for business, enjoyment or even see associates?
Nowadays, not surprisingly, anybody defacing ancient monuments with their own name will be prosecuted. This would be seen as an act of criminal damage. Four years ago a visitor scrawled a message on a bed in an historical stone house in Skara Brae, declaring XXX slept here, and also the date. Police matched up the name to the owner of a motor vehicle who was simply visiting and caught up with him as he boarded the ferry returning to the mainland. His marks were not left on the Neolithic monument for archaeologists of the future to come across – he ended up being made to get rid of them personally!
Nevertheless the older markings are important indicators that inform us about the men and women that visited the monuments and also raise interesting questions about social history, say the archaeologists. And the Viking graffiti and the dragon image are now an important part of the interest of visiting the Maeshowe chambered cairn, that had been excavated in 1861.
Unusual Jewellery Originated From Viking Art forms
The 30 inscriptions located in Maeshowe cairn, ensure it is one of the greatest, and most well-known, collections of runes identified in Europe. The Orkneyinga Saga says that over 800 years back a party of Viking warriors had wanted shelter from a horrendous snowstorm. As they were waiting in the stone chamber for the storm to pass they carved graffiti in to the stone walls. Many of these primitive designs can be found in finer form in Viking jewellery pieces.
Much of the writing is boastful. It contains references to skilful rune carving with numerous names and also to the elegance of a woman identified as Ingibiorg. Ola Gorie also has designed a jewellery collection which bears this Viking lady’s identity. A different Norse group of fighters later on also left their marks on the walls. However, if the Vikings had been on the lookout for treasure, they would have been let down.
Even so, the legacies of these inscriptions are treasures in on their own now. Guides to the tomb highlight the wonderful runes by torchlight. And jewellery designers Ola Gorie have designed two collections of unusual jewellery influenced by the Norse warriors’ etchings. These old Vikings have surely left their mark.
Making use of Viking graffiti as a way to obtain ideas surely has created some unusual jewellery, then again, if your own personal preference may be for something more modern then maybe it is best to just click here.