Necklace

This necklace with beads of glass, paste, amber, bone and stone was found in a woman's grave at Westness on Rousay in Orkney. It was probably made in Scandinavia and brought to Orkney as a prized personal possession of one of the Scandinavian settlers.

The glass and paste beads are in a variety of colours, with some made in a millefiori technique. The necklace of beads may have been worn strung between two oval brooches pinned at the shoulders.

A number of pagan graves have been excavated at Westness. This high status woman died in childbirth. She was buried with a splendid Insular brooch (the so-called Westness brooch), Scandinavian oval brooches, this necklace and a range of domestic items.

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