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Gold lunula from Blessington, Ireland, Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, c. 2400BC – 2000BC, Classical group. A gold lunula (pl. gold lunulae) was a distinctive type of late Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and—most often—early Bronze Age necklace, collar, or pectoral shaped like a crescent moon.
It is now in the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology in Dublin, where it is normally on display. It was found in a bog at Coggalbeg, County Roscommon in 1945, [2] and consists of a gold lunula (a crescent shaped "little moon") and two small gold discs, of a type known from other examples, decorated with a cross motif within two circles ...
The lunula is made of decorated gold and dated to 2200-2000 BC and is one of the earliest gold ornaments from Wales. [1] Other estimates suggest 2400-2000 BC of the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age. [2] The lunula is the heaviest lunula from the islands of Britain and Ireland, weighing 185g. [3] Llanllyfni lunula.
In Ireland, lunulae were probably replaced as neck ornaments firstly by gold torcs, found from the Irish Middle Bronze Age, and then in the Late Bronze Age by the spectacular "gorgets" of thin ribbed gold, some with round discs at the side, of which 9 examples survive, 7 in the National Museum of Ireland. [9]
A small number of bullae have been found in Ireland; they are called "bullae" based on their resemblance to the Roman form. [a] The Irish bullae so far found were made of base metal [b] – sometimes clay – covered with a folded over piece of gold foil. The Irish bullae date to the Late Bronze Age, about 1150–750 BCE.
The English portraitist James Gandy was brought to Ireland after his patron James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond became Lord Deputy in 1661, and remained until his death in 1689. By the 1680s the Dutch Golden Age painter Ludowyk Smits was able to base himself in Ireland, mainly painting portraits. Irish painters typically looked outside Ireland for ...
During the Last Glacial Maximum, [5] (between about 26,000 and 20,000 years BP) ice sheets more than 3,000 m (9,800 ft) thick scoured the landscape of Ireland. By 24,000 years ago they extended beyond the southern coast of Ireland; but by 16,000 years ago the glaciers had retreated so that only an ice bridge remained between Ireland and Scotland.
In some cases gold lunulae have been found with pairs of gold discs, e.g. at Coggalbeg in Ireland and Cabeceiras de Basto in Portugal. [161] [162] Both lunulae and discs have been linked to sun worship. [163] The archaeologist Mary Cahill connects them to a "great solar cult" stretching across western and central Europe to Scandinavia. [88]