Friday 1 October 2010

Treasure

As promised, ages ago, this post is to show some of the beautiful jewellery that is in the British Museum.

I do have to admit that I may not be able to remember what period it came from so I suggest the best thing is if you pop along to the museum yourself or if unable due to distance, then check out the website here.This is the collection database here.

So all I am going to show is the photos I took. Bear in mind that this is just a tiny tiny proportion of what there is in the museum.








My photographs are pretty bad but I did try to capture some of the amazing detail.  Alot of these photos are of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon jewellery and it amazes me that goldsmiths some 1500 years ago could create such beautiful pieces.  Truly inspiring.  Oh yes I think there is some photos of Roman and possible Egyptian pieces too (bad Alix! Take notes next time).

5 comments:

Shpangle said...

oooh I want to go and have a look now! Thank you for a lovely blog post, they certainly knew how to make jewellery didn't they!

Mick

gtlady said...

Gorgeous, how inspiring, thanks for sharing!

louise35flower said...

Oh my gosh you have really taken me back in time! I have drawings that I did for my degree of some of these pieces. I used to visit the museum regularly for inspiration and have a sketchbook somewhere stuffed full of pen and ink drawings.

Lorrie said...

Hmmnnnn, seen all these many times. It's a mixture of La Tene Celtic metal work and Viking. The torc is Celtic and they were mostly an electrum alloy of gold and silver. The disc broaches with the long pins are typcially dark age Celtic work and the badges Viking. Did you see the Snettisham torc while you were there? It's a huge piece, biggest to be found in the UK.

Unknown said...

I love looking at all the jewellery in any museum but the British one has some fab items. Love your picks. I fancy a trip up to London now....
Gemxxx