Archaeologists exploring Lindisfarne, an island famous for its rich religious history – including the first Viking invasion – have recovered the oldest prayer beads ever found in Older brother.
While digging at an ancient burial site on the island of Lindisfarne off the Northumberland coast in northeastern England, a team of experts led by Dr. David Petts from Durham University were delighted to discover a string of orb beads. The prayer was placed inside a man’s grave. According to Digventures, who collaborated and funded the ongoing investigation at Lindisfarne, the beads were made from salmon vertebrae and after careful analysis, archaeologists were able to date them. of these counties in the eighth or ninth century AD.
This is the first time any type of artifact has been found inside a tomb at Lindisfarne. However, finding an object related to Christian worship on the island is not surprising. Lindisfarne has long been known as “The Holy Island,” because of its long history as a place of refuge and sanctuary for those practicing the Christian faith. That history stretches back to the seventh century, when England was still a land of Anglo-Saxon culture, society and religion.
These are the oldest prayer beads ever found in Britain, recently unearthed on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne as part of an ongoing crowdfunded archaeological project. ( Notification )
Lindisfarne’s 1,200-year-old sacred fish prayer bead
It is known that the medieval monastery of Lindisfarne was once located near the site where the prayer beads were unearthed. Therefore, archaeologists believe that the tomb where the beads were found would have been the final resting place of a monk who lived there more than 1,200 years ago.
If the burial is that of a monk, he may have been among the group of monks who composed, illuminated and published the famous Lindisfarne Gospels, considered the preeminent surviving religious text from England Anglo-Saxon England. He may even be the monk identified as the main author of the Gospels, Eadfrith, who is said to have completed the book around the year 700.
Whoever the monk was, he would have used prayer beads for private devotion and worship.
Dr Petts, who specializes in early Christianity, told the Telegraph : “We think about the monumental ritual aspect of early medieval life in monasteries and great works like the Gospels Lindisfarne” . “But what we have here is something that touches on a much more personal aspect of early Christianity.”
The use of salmon vertebrae to make beads is notable because it is consistent with the incorporation of fish symbolism in Christian practice. Fish were an early symbol of Christianity, and its association with the worship of Jesus can be traced back to the first century AD.
The Greek word for fish is “ichthys,” and early church worshipers created an abbreviation from this word that symbolized the central figure in their religion: Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter ( ICHTHYS), or “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior”. .” Fish are also associated with Christ miraculously feeding 5,000 people with just two fish and five loaves of bread, and Christ is also known to have called his disciples “fishers of men.” ”.
Lindisfarne Monastery seen from above. (Christopher Down / CC BY 4.0 )
The story of Lindisfarne, the Holy Island
The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is located in the North Sea, just a few miles south of the southeastern border of Scotland and England. It is remote but not remote, as it is connected to Northumberland by a causeway that is sometimes open and sometimes covered by water, depending on the movement of the tides.
Lindisfarne first became a religious center in the seventh century. Acting on a whim, King Oswald of Northumbria sent Saint Aidan, an Irish monk who served the church at Iona in Scotland, to Lindisfarne. His work was to transform this remote and peaceful oasis into a spiritual sanctuary for Anglo-Saxon Christians. To facilitate conversion, Saint Aidan founded Lindisfarne Abbey in 635, and later remained as abbot and first bishop.
The monks who wrote the famous Lindisfarne Gospels were all associated with this monastery.
This acclaimed masterpiece includes a copy of the Four Gospels recounting the life of Christ, along with several related texts including a list of chapters and a letter written by St. Jerome to Pope Damasus, after he commissioned St. Jerome to translate the Bible. into Latin in the fourth century. The book is divided into different sections by five pages of elaborate and elegantly designed carpets, seemingly modeled after luxurious carpets imported from the eastern Mediterranean. It also includes illustrations of religious figures in several sections, which are rendered quite impressively.
In the late eighth century, Lindisfarne distinguished itself by becoming the first British territory to be raided by the Vikings. The Vikings returned to the island many times after that, and in 875 the last Anglo-Saxon monks left Lindisfarne to return to the mainland.
Some time after the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century, the monks returned to build a new monastery. This organization operated and occupied until 1537, when Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of all monasteries in England.
However, it is the ruins of the old monastery that have most interested archaeologists in their recent excavations.
The excavation project found remarkable salmon vertebrae prayer beads that have a unique history. It is not sponsored by an academic institution but is instead funded entirely by donations obtained through the DigVentures crowdsourcing platform. (YouTube screenshot / DigVentures)
DigVentures: Making Crowdfunded Archeology Pay Off!
Dr. Petts notes that ancient prayer beads are almost ignored. At first, it was thought that they were simply ordinary necklace ornaments and that they were made from fish bones because that material was very common and widespread on the island.
But Marina Chorro Giner, a zoo archaeologist assigned to the excavation project, noticed something important.
“This bright, eagle-eyed researcher looked at them and said, actually these are not just fish bones, they have been transformed and turned into something,” Dr. Petts explains.
Upon closer examination, it became clear that the bones had been polished and shaped into prayer beads, and upon determining their antiquity, archaeologists realized that no one had ever before Found this ancient prayer beads in England.
The excavation project that produced this remarkable find has a unique history. It is not funded by an academic institution but is instead funded entirely by donations obtained through the crowdsourcing platform Dig Ventures.
The aim of the project is to discover more about ancient Anglo-Saxon society and its cultural and religious practices, and the project will continue as long as the public is willing to fund it.
