Really excited to finally be able to tell the world about ead͡ruf!

The Ord Cross: A gold early medieval Latin cross pendant with Runic inscription, found near Berwick upon Tweed (c.AD700-900).
@findsorguk @TRegistrars Thread👇
It's a solid gold Latin cross with crude piercing, prob a repair. The slight concavity on the top is all that remains of original attachment. The entire length is filled with an inscription comprising six runes & each arm has a single (crudely) incised equal armed cross
So why a Latin Cross? This is the name for the form of cross in this pendant, but it is unusual during the early medieval period. We’re more used to seeing Christian crosses in this equal armed form, as seen in these examples, and as we can see this was a long-lived form.
This hollow gold C7th cross pendant from Lincolnshire is perhaps the closest parallel to ours, though ours is notably different being being solid and more...vernacular form, but it perhaps hints at what the lost attachment may have looked like
Examples of Latin Crosses are also seen on the contemporary coinage, see here at the top of this obverse face of an Offa penny, and quite often features on the reverse faces of the early medieval gold tremissis as you can see on this particularly lovely *Durham recorded* example
Examples of Latin Crosses are also seen on the contemporary coinage, see here at the top of this obverse face of an Offa penny, and quite often features on the reverse faces of the early medieval gold tremissis as you can see on this particularly lovely *Durham recorded* example
Examples of Latin Crosses are also seen on the contemporary coinage, see here at the top of this obverse face of an Offa penny, and quite often features on the reverse faces of the early medieval gold tremissis as you can see on this particularly lovely *Durham recorded* example
The Ord cross was found south-west of Berwick traditionally the Chapelry of Tweedmouth, in turn part of a group of estates/townships within Islandshire. In the early medieval period this was part of a larger parish that belonged to Lindisfarne (yes, *that* early medieval island!)
Tweedmouth itself may have Romano-British origins, likely a crossing point or bridge was here leading to the north along the route of the ‘Devil’s Causeway’ Roman road (marked in yellow), probably in the vicinity of the later Parish Church.
Although there’s, as yet, no archaeological evidence of early medieval settlement in Tweedmouth (& please correct me if wrong!), the parish church was founded in the name of St Boisil, & there’s a generally assumed history of the foundation of an Abbey here in the 7th century.
Boisil was, of course Prior and later Abbot of old Melrose Abbey, and according to the stories/legends was at the gate of the abbey when a young [later to be saint] Cuthbert rocked up!
(shown in this later manuscript)
So what about that inscription?
Well, i'm extremely grateful to @DavidPetts1 & Prof John Hines for help with all this [clueless about runes here...]:
Artefacts such as this are quite often inscribed with the personal name of a person with whom the object had been associated...
Most likely interpretation: ead͡ruf
Ead is Old English (‘happiness’/‘fortune’), but only 2 with a 2nd element beginning r are Eadred/Eadric & 'ruf' is unknown in any Germanic language/name.
So, excitingly, Eadruf is an as yet “etymologically mysterious name”! (as Hines put's it)
Whoever ead͡ruf was as an individual, they were clearly embedded in that Melrose/Tweedmouth/Lindisfarne social landscape, & very much part of the early medieval early Christian fabric of Northumbria in the 7th-8th century.
🤞coming to a museum soon!
https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/986027#
Also folks, some shameless self-promotion...
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