Museum news

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 413

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Bronze Age items stolen from Ely Museum

Police and Ely Museum staff are appealing for information to help recover a 3,000-year-old torc – described as the museum’s ‘most prized object’ – and a Bronze Age gold bracelet, which were stolen during a break-in on 7 May.

CCTV footage released by Cambridgeshire Police shows two suspects arriving at the museum on e-scooters in the early hours of 7 May, before entering the building through a window.

These individuals are believed to have stolen the East Cambridgeshire torc (below), which at 49 inches in diameter and weighing 732g is one of the largest and heaviest examples of its kind ever found in Britain and Ireland. It was discovered by a metal-detectorist in a ploughed field in 2015, and was acquired by Ely Museum two years later, aided by a series of grants and public donations. A roughly contemporary gold bracelet was also taken.

The museum is now working with the police to trace the stolen items. If you have any information, please contact the police through their web chat service, quoting Operation Lacunar, or call them on 101. The charity Crimestoppers has offered a reward of up to £5,000 for exclusive information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the thieves. To find out more, see https://crimestoppers-uk.org/news-campaigns/news/2024/may/5-000-reward-offered-after-devastating-theft-of-bronze-age-treasures.

Ogham stone displayed in Coventry

A stone inscribed with the Early Irish ogham writing system, found four years ago in a Coventry garden, has gone on display in the city for the first time.

Measuring around 11cm in length, the stone was discovered by Coventry resident Graham Senior when he was gardening to pass the time during lockdown in May 2020. He reported his discovery to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, who confirmed that its inscription was ogham, an early medieval alphabet involving groups of parallel lines, which was used to write the Early Irish language.

More than 400 ogham stones and fragments are known, predominantly in Ireland and on the Welsh coast. How Graham’s example came to Coventry is a mystery, but it uses an early style of script that dates it most likely to the 5th or 6th century, but possibly as early as the 4th century. Its inscription reads MALDUMCAIL / S / LASS; this text includes a personal name, Mael Dumcail, though the rest is harder to interpret.

The stone has now been included in Collecting Coventry, a new, free exhibition that is running at Herbert Art Gallery & Museum until 27 April 2025. The exhibition explores the history of the collections managed by Culture Coventry Trust from 1949 to the present day. See http://www.theherbert.org/whats-on/1799/collecting-coventry for more details.