Vikings in BC – brooches part 2

Close up on the oval brooch

Today I have even more pictures for you from the Vikings in BC exhibit, focused on brooches from a few different displays.

This is another image-heavy post, so I’m separating brooch-related posts into a few posts.

Vikings in BC – brooches part 1

Box brooch from the Vikings in BC display

In a previous post I shared some brooches from the Vikings in BC exhibit. Today I have some more for you. Since I have a LOT of brooch photos, I’m going to be breaking this up over a few days, to limit the number of photos in one post.  You can click the Vikings In BC tag to see all of the posts from this exhibit.

Viking Age moulded jewellery

Horse-head mould and resulting artefact

While I’m busy working on a bunch of different things, I thought I’d take a break from those posts (while waiting to finish them.. ahem) to share some of the remaining photos from the Vikings In BC display from Victoria, BC this past summer.

This was a really cool display – all about moulded items.

Viking Tortoise Brooches

Tortoise brooches found beneath the Hekla eruption.

From the Iceland National Museum

So I took a bit of a detour and showed you some photos from the Vikings exhibit in BC,  (click the tag to read more) but I still have so much to share from Iceland.. so back to Iceland we will go!

The Iceland National Museum had a number of “tortoise” brooches on display from a number of different discoveries. I’ve decided to show them all off on one page, although they all might be from different ages.

Please note, this is a VERY image-heavy post.

Viking “roach” brooch at the Saga Museum

Mother figure wearing a folded apron dress held with “roach” shaped brooches

After seeing the large tortoise (oval/ turtle) brooches from Viking Age finds, I was struck how distinctly different this brooch was, from the Saga Museum in Iceland. The character portrayed is supposed to be a Celtic woman taken as a slave/wife by a Nordic Viking Age man, and taken to Iceland. The brooch is much, much smaller than the other brooches displayed (either the originals as seen elsewhere, or the reproductions in the Saga Museum) an has a pattern, size, and shape that reminded me of a cockroach! (Hence, I’m calling it a “roach brooch” even if that’s not the most flattering name!