I once was lost, but now I'm found

Simply put, the Berwick Museum houses a priceless artifact, a national treasure--the gold Ord Cross.  One that is on par with the gold Aemilia Ring on display in Hancock Museum at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  

For background, in Spring 2017 after our walk across Walltown Crags on Hadrian's Wall , we viewed the Aemilia Ring at Newcastle.  [https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2019/04/celtic-christian-sacred-sites-and.html]

The Aemilia Ring was discovered (a well-documented find) while pulling turnips from a field at the Roman site of Corbridge in January 1840.  In 1991, the ring was put on the auction block from the estate of the Duke of Northumberland by Sotheby's.  Graciously, it was withdrawn from auction and acquired by private treaty for permanent public display at the Hancock.

The Aemilia Ring (dated ~2nd to 4th century A.D.), is generally considered the earliest Christian artifact in all of Britain.  A betrothal ring of relatively sophisticated goldsmith skill, the Aemilia may have been worn in Roman Britain as early as 100 - 120 A.D.  That is a staggeringly early date for any Christian artifact in Britain.  Within living memory of Christ and certainly of the Apostles Peter and Paul who are thought to have been martyred in Rome, c. 64 A.D. on the orders of Emperor Nero.

The province of Britannia was at the edge of the Roman Empire, far distant from the Roman world's Mediterranean heartland where the Christian saga first unfolded.  Roman civilization marched into its far flung provinces upon the soles of Roman soldiers, so to speak.  The Aemilia Ring attests to Christianity being introduced into Britain not so much by missionary saints (who did bring the Gospel several centuries later).  Christianity was introduced by ordinary Roman soldiers, provincial families and traders.  

Corbridge, where the ring was found, was Rome's most northerly town.  And thus, it was a trading gateway into the lands of present day Scotland as well.  Corbridge dates to ~85 A.D. when its first fort was built to replace an earlier military encampment, establishing a more permanent presence.  By 150 A.D. (roughly when the Aemilia Ring would have been worn there), Corbridge's fort was replaced with a border trading town and walled military installations at the junction of Stanesgate and Dere Street roads.  Corbridge would then be garrisoned until the end of Rome's imperial control of Britain (c. 420 A.D.) 

In its importance, the gold Ord Cross now on display at Berwick Museum is similar to the Aemilia Ring. A Christian relic and national treasure.  Both recall the old hymn penned by John Newton in December 1772 at Olney, England entitled Amazing Grace.  Truly, I once was lost, but now I'm found.  Newton's verse was later put to music in 1835 (by American composer William Walker) to a traditional bagpipes tune called "New Britain" which is now a universally recognized hymn the world over. 

John Newton--National Portrait Gallery, London

Taking a rather wide-turn aside here, but it is an understatement to say John Newton led an early "wretched" life.  Press ganged into enlistment in the Royal navy at an early age, a rebellious young Newton worked several years on slave ships, and several times came under the lash for his mutinous behavior.  Newton, a white man, was ultimately betrayed by his own crew mates.  (They wanted to be shed of him.)  So Newton was himself enslaved in Sierra Leone to the African Princess Peye, who is often considered among the cruelest women ever to live.  

As Newton recounted years later, the idea of a white man as her slave appealed to Princess Peye.  It was a role reversal.  The African princess could torture, humiliate and order a white man to "do her bidding, day after day, night after night".  Ultimately, Newton was rescued in 1748, and would go on to captain several slave ships himself.  Even after retiring from seafaring, he continued to invest in the slave trade.  Eventually, Newton repented his chequered past, and would serve as an evangelical Anglican minister known as one of the strongest abolitionist voices against the slave trade in his time.  [Engraving by Joseph Collyer the Younger, from a line engraving by John Russel, January 1, 1808 (1788)].

April 1, 2023--Ord Cross found across Tweed near the old bridge

Though created several centuries after the Aemilia Ring, in its own right the gold Ord Cross is among the earliest Christian Anglo-Saxon artifacts.  Anglo Saxon artifacts in the Berwick area are extremely rare.  Found by a metal detectionist in 2019 on the banks of River Tweed, there are few comparable examples to the Ord Cross.  Of those that have been found (elsewhere in Britain), most early Anglo-Saxon crosses are equal armed.  The Ord Cross shape is unusual.  It was suspended from its shaft's base, i.e. upside down.  Could the Ord Cross represent the traditional Catholic belief that an "unworthy" St. Peter was crucified upside down at Rome?   

The Ord Cross is unique.  No other similar pieces have been found that bear Anglo Saxon (Old English) runic inscriptions.  When the finder reported the cross pendant to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, several specialists were enlisted to examine the cross and translate its inscription.  

Six runes were identified, with the first two drilled through.  (The cross shaft base was pierced to wear it as a pendant after the runes were inscribed when the cross was first made.)  This was not a repurposing of the cross like, say, piercing a coin for wear as a pendant.  The cross was originally designed to be a pendant as evidenced by stumps of a gold loop that was intended to hang the cross from its base shaft.  After this loop broke off, it was roughly pierced to again permit the pendant to hang...also upside down. 

April 1, 2023--Berwick Museum display of the Ord Cross

Translated, the runes are a personal name, Eadruf--presumably the original wearer.  The name Eadruf is problematic.  Personal names beginning with Ead- (roughly translated as ‘fortunate’) are common in Old English.  But only two names are known which have the second element beginning with r- ...Eadred and Eadric respectively.  From the limited universe of early medieval Anglo-Saxon artifacts and texts, no personal name with a second element of "ruf" has yet been identified in any Germanic language.  So etymologically, Eadruf is an unknown name of mysterious origin. 

As for Berwick Museum's display, we were among the very first public to view the Ord Cross on exhibition.  Local staff and volunteer docents were practically bubbling over with excited pride, as right they should.  The Ord Cross was purchased and funded by private donations.  It was placed on public display quite literally when we walked up to the museum's gate April 1, 2023.

April 2, 2023--Bamburgh Castle

This diminutive piece of Anglo Saxon jewellery (one inch by 5/8th inch) is unlike anything else of similar age (c. 700 to 900 A.D.)  Being of solid gold, the Ord Cross would've been an item of great value and worn by someone in a position of wealth or authority (at least before the hanging loop broke).  The Ord Cross may well have witnessed the travels of early Christian saints at Lindisfarne--like Cuthbert, Aidan or Bede.  Where the cross was found along River Tweed was something of a thoroughfare linking Old Melrose and Lindisfarne abbeys with Bamburgh, the royal court of Northumbria.

Who Eadruf may have been can only be conjecture.  Berwick at that time (which included Ord, traditionally the Chapelry of Tweedmouth) belonged to the Abbey of Lindisfarne, part of a group of farming estates and towns in what was known as Islandshire.  Perhaps Eadruf was an overseer of the farmsteads on behalf of Lindisfarne.  Records also indicate that a church or abbey may have been in the vicinity where the Ord Cross was found.  However, no archaeological evidence of any early Middle Ages structure has yet been identified there.  In its way, the Ord Cross "saved" Eadruf, or at least saved his name.  Eadruf is now considered the earliest known Northumbrian name in evidence...saved by amazing grace as it were.  "I once was lost, but now I'm found."