Britain’s earliest known prayer beads will go on display at the refurbished museum at Lindisfarne Priory this weekend. The necklace, dating from between the 8th and 9th century and made from salmon vertebrae, was recently found on a skeleton on Holy Island in Northumberland.
It will be exhibited along with an Anglo-Saxon glass gaming counter and 21 unique name stones – which were used to identify the dead and are inscribed with runic and Latin text – on Saturday when the priory’s museum and shop reopens following its closure in the autumn for refurbishment.
A spearhead, which could have been used to protect against Viking raiders, and fragments of a 17th century knitted woollen, sleeved waistcoat are also among the recent Lindisfarne finds to be shown at the museum. The waistcoat has been identified as one of the earliest surviving examples of knitting in Europe, and means the priory was continuing to be used past its suppression in 1537 during the English Reformation, when England broke away from the Catholic Church.
