The unique rock crystal jar decorated with gold filigree that was one of the treasures found in the Galloway Hoard, an assemblage of precious artifacts and materials from Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England, Persia and Central Asia, buried around 900 AD. The jar is now on display at the Kirkcudbright Galleries, less than 10 miles from where the hoard was discovered in 2014.
by SashSegal
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**The Galloway Hoard: Rock Crystal Jar exhibition at Kirkcudbright Galleries, near where the Hoard was first discovered, will run until 14 June 2026.**
The gold filigree-mounted rock crystal jar is of Anglo-Saxon manufacture, and the quality of materials and craftsmanship places among the greatest examples of Anglo-Saxon metal work. A Latin inscription on the base reading H Y G V A L D E P : F A C : I U S S (“Bishop Hyguald had me made”) identifies it as having come from a Northumbrian cathedral treasury, although no bishop named Hyguald has been found in the patchy surviving church records of the 9th century.
The rock crystal itself, however, long predates the gold mount. It was carved with lobes that when viewed upside down look like the acanthus leave layers of Corinthian column. The wear on the hard material and the great skill needed to carve it point to it having been made in the Roman Empire. It was the capital of miniature column — several of these objects are in the collection of the Vatican Museums — and bears a central drilled hole originally used to hold the column parts together.
It seems the carved crystal top, long separated from the rest of the column, was treasured as an heirloom for centuries. Hundreds of years later, it was flipped upside down and ornamented with gold in a unique filigree technique using spirals of twisted and plaited wire and granulation. The drilled hole was alighted with a gold spout. It was probably used to hold a small amount of liquid, a precious substance, perhaps a relic.
[https://media.nms.ac.uk/news/prized-treasure-from-the-galloway-hoard-on-show-for-the-first-time-in-kirkcudbright](https://media.nms.ac.uk/news/prized-treasure-from-the-galloway-hoard-on-show-for-the-first-time-in-kirkcudbright)