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A “remarkable” ring dating back at least a millennium was recently unearthed near the Scottish shore. And it wasn’t some seasoned archeologist who made the find, but rather, a self-described “enthusiastic volunteer” who uncovered this ancient piece of jewelry.
John Ralph, a 68-year-old former engineer, had started out simply looking to make use of his free time. “I had recently retired and saw a post looking for volunteers to help with the Burghead excavations,” he told BBC Scotland, “My sister still lives in Burghead and it sounded interesting so I thought why not. I have now joined three different digs there, each for two weeks.”
The area currently being excavated is thought to have been a settlement that served as “a significant seat of power” during the Pictish kingdom between 500 and 1000 CE. At first, Ralph felt he was making remarkable discovery after remarkable discovery, only to be told by the attending experts that he’d merely found some glistening rocks.
“I thoroughly enjoyed them all but my initial enthusiasm for finds was somewhat dented by my knack of getting excited for shiny pebbles,” Ralph summarized, “I had found a few interesting items including bone pins and it was great being part of the team, which was the real draw.”
But that changed when Ralph was simply cleaning the floor of a structure. He first spotted a metal pin, and then “lo and behold, there was the ring.”
“John was digging and then came over and said ‘look what I’ve found,’” Gordon Noble, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen told BBC Scotland. Noble, who has led the excavation work over the last three years, felt what Ralph had stumbled upon was “truly incredible,” noting that “We could see it was something really exciting as despite more than 1,000 years in the ground we could see glints of the possible garnet setting.”
This surprising discovery was made all the more remarkable, Noble added, because “There are very few Pictish rings which have ever been discovered and those we do know about usually come from hoards which were placed in the ground deliberately for safekeeping in some way.”
The Picts, called Picti by the Romans from the Latin for “Painted Ones,” were northern tribes who made up the largest kingdom in Dark Age Scotland, per the BBC. Noteworthy warriors, the Picts held back invasion attempts by not just the Romans, but also the Angles, the latter during the famous Battle of Dun Nechtain.
“If the Picts had lost,” the BBC wrote of the ferocious fight against the Northumbrian Angle invaders, “Scotland might never have existed.” However, in spite of their military might, the Picts would “disappear from history by the end of the first millennium,” with the BBC noting that they were “swallowed whole by the history of another group, the Gaels.”
So this ring, stumbled upon by a volunteer with a knack for finding “shiny pebbles,” not only offers a connection to a crucial group of people in Scotland’s history, it might also provide a greater understanding of a kingdom who “disappeared from history.” The ring is currently at the National Museum of Scotland for analysis.
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Source Agencies
