TREASURE TROVE IN SKYE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 145, 20 June 1891, Page 3 (Supplement)

TREASURE TROVE IN SKYE.

Coixs and Ornaments Fotjnit After a

Thousand Yeaks.

A hoard of Oriental treasure has "been found in a cave in the Island of Skye, off the north-western coast of Scotland. Among the treasures are seventeen Oriental silver coins of the class known as Cufic f about the size of a florin, and minted at the time when the seat of the Mohammedan Caliphate was at Cufa or Bagdad. There are also fifteen silver ingots, cut by an axe into lengths of abo'ub halt an inch, besides personal ornaments. Of the latter the largest is a tore, or neck ring, twelve inches in length, formed of a circular and tapering rod of silver, with hooks ab the ends. Thsre are also fragments of a larga penannular brooch, formed of a solid bar of silver a quarter of an inch thick, with punched ornamentation on both sidee. There are also portions of two thin bracelets, one of them ornamented with rows o£ marks made by a punch with four dots in the field, and another with marks of a circular punch. The Cufic coins are especially interesting. Around the margin they bear two lines of inscription in the old Arabic character, and within the circle the distinctive formula of the Mohammedan faith. Being difficult of decipherment, it is not yeb possible to give the details of the time and place of their mintage ; bub there is no doubb that they belong to the early portion of the tenth century, and are probably from the mints of the Samasside and Abbasside Catipha at Bagdad and Samarcand. V The archffiologist9 are trying to account for the curious fact of the existence of these Oriental treasures in a cave of one of the isles of Northern Scotland. The time of their concealment, 1.000 years ago, waa that in which the Vikings and sea rovera were in the height of their glory. Ab this period there was much commercial intercourse between the Asiatic countries lying to the easb of the Caspian Sea and the countries bordering on the Baltic, the route being by the Volga to the north of Russia. The Vikings were traders as well as plunderers, and when they could nob plunder they traded, always striving to convert all booty into silver, which waa then the universal medium of exchange. It was in the way thus indicated thab the Baltic Vikings gob hold of the silver coins and jewelry from far Asiatic countries. The., long ships of these rovers were then sweeping the North Sea, turning into the Atlantic, and operating on the west of England and Scotland, as well as on the Irish coast. They were especially active at timos in the region of the Hebrides, and it was doubtless some of them who buried in a cave on the island of Skye the treasures that have been found after a thousand yisare of concealment.