[MR] History Blog: Fishy Prayer Beads Found at Lindisfarne

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

Archaeologists have found a prayer bead necklace in a grave on the Holy
Island, Lindisfarne. The beads are thought to date to the 8th or 9th
century CE, and were found with a skeleton believed to be a monk.

The beads are particularly unusual in that they are made from salmon
vertebrae.

Lindisfarne, as some of you will remember, was the site of the first
recorded Viking raid against England in 793 CE. Vikings . . . uh . . .
revisited the island regularly during the 9th century. The monastery was
finally abandoned in 875, with the monks taking the relics of their famous
abbot St. Cuthbert and the famous Lindisfarne Gospels with them. Another
monastery was built there during Norman times.

The beads can be viewed at http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/64451 .

More about Lindisfarne and its monastery (both history and current facts)
is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aidan_of_Lindisfarne .

Yours Aye,


Lord Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆