DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.47496#0090
70 EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND.
Both of these exquisite works were discovered accidentally by
peasants. The Tara brooch was found on the 24th of August,
1850, by the child of a poor woman, who picked it up near the
sea-shore; she afterwards sold it to a watchmaker in Drogheda,
and it is now preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.
The chalice was found by a boy digging potatoes, near the old
Rath of Ardagh. We are therefore obliged to turn to other
sorms of evidence before we can ofser any theory as to the
date of these objects and their place in the history of Irish
metal-work.
The further the study of archaeology advances, the more
possible it becomes to trace the existence and history of certain
laws, which may be applied with more or less confidence to
the formation of chronological classification of the objects they
are dealing with. The first step in this direction should be to
place in regular order the series of objects whose date has
been already ascertained, so that they may serve afterwards as
landmarks, starting-points for the future classification of undated
ones.
In each of the various classes of antiquities of Christian
Ireland, some examples may be found, the date of which is
fixed by the inscriptions that they bear; certain variations take
place in the style and decoration, by which these variously dated
examples are characterised—variations in the compositions of
the metals, in the methods' of working the metals in the enamels,
and in the designing of the patterns and scrolls with which the
surface was adorned. It is found, on a comparative study of the
relics whose date is more or less fixed, that such designs as are
held to be peculiarly characteristic of Irish Art are not common
to every period in the history of its development, but are con-
fined to a more limited space of time than has been hitherto
believed. The reader should refer to the close of this work,
where he will sind a table with a chronological arrangement of
those examples of Irish illuminated manuscripts, metal-work,
Both of these exquisite works were discovered accidentally by
peasants. The Tara brooch was found on the 24th of August,
1850, by the child of a poor woman, who picked it up near the
sea-shore; she afterwards sold it to a watchmaker in Drogheda,
and it is now preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.
The chalice was found by a boy digging potatoes, near the old
Rath of Ardagh. We are therefore obliged to turn to other
sorms of evidence before we can ofser any theory as to the
date of these objects and their place in the history of Irish
metal-work.
The further the study of archaeology advances, the more
possible it becomes to trace the existence and history of certain
laws, which may be applied with more or less confidence to
the formation of chronological classification of the objects they
are dealing with. The first step in this direction should be to
place in regular order the series of objects whose date has
been already ascertained, so that they may serve afterwards as
landmarks, starting-points for the future classification of undated
ones.
In each of the various classes of antiquities of Christian
Ireland, some examples may be found, the date of which is
fixed by the inscriptions that they bear; certain variations take
place in the style and decoration, by which these variously dated
examples are characterised—variations in the compositions of
the metals, in the methods' of working the metals in the enamels,
and in the designing of the patterns and scrolls with which the
surface was adorned. It is found, on a comparative study of the
relics whose date is more or less fixed, that such designs as are
held to be peculiarly characteristic of Irish Art are not common
to every period in the history of its development, but are con-
fined to a more limited space of time than has been hitherto
believed. The reader should refer to the close of this work,
where he will sind a table with a chronological arrangement of
those examples of Irish illuminated manuscripts, metal-work,