Читать книгу Irish History: People, places and events that built Ireland - Neil Hegarty - Страница 12

Ancient Ireland was a place of conflict and struggle, but it was also characterized by intense artistry and creativity. The National Gallery of Ireland’s collection provides evidence of this creativity in the form of an immense treasury of Irish gold: jewellery, sheet gold, lunulae and torcs (golden collars or rings), bracelets and earrings – much of it highly and cleverly decorated. Gold was panned from the rivers of Ireland, particularly those flowing from the uplands where seams were known to exist, such as the Wicklow Mountains in Leinster and the Sperrin Mountains in Ulster. Much of this worked gold was buried, plundered, or dispersed over the years – and uncovered by accident. One startling find was the Broighter Hoard, revealed in 1896 by a farmer ploughing his fields on the edge of Lough Foyle in County Derry. He discovered a wooden box filled with gold from the first century BC, including the Broighter Torc and other ornaments, plus the Broighter Boat, fragile but intact and fashioned exquisitely. The hoard is speculated to have been a votive offering to the sea god Manannán Mac Lir, and sunk into what had been the ancient sea-bed.