On This Day: The Defeat of Macbeth
On this day in 1054 AD, Northumbrian forces defeated King Macbeth of Scotland in battle at Dunsinane. Yes, that Macbeth. Of Shakespeare fame. “Double, double toil and trouble” and “Is this a dagger I see before me?” fame. Though his story was not perhaps as we know it from Shakespeare’s atmospheric tale. Macbethad mac Findláech, […]
Spotlight: Bronze Strap-End, Buckle or Clasp
Our newest spotlight is by Dake, a placement student who has been working with us for almost a year. Dake is a student from Durham University’s department of archaeology. During this time he has helped us with lots of things but especially photogrammetry and creating 3D models of our objects. This has been incredibly helpful […]
Spotlight: Harness Pendant
Welcome to our newest spotlight! I recently had the pleasure of working with this wonderful little harness pendant in our collections, and it led me down a rabbithole of research. This example (2025.0022 in our collections) dates from the late 14th century, so around 1350-1400 AD. It is in a quatrefoil shape – this comes from the Latin ‘quattor’, meaning ‘four’ and ‘folium’ meaning ‘leaf’. You might see this shape a lot in churches as […]
Spotlight: JAM
Hello and welcome back to our spotlight series, picking up with our second spotlight of the year. This time we are highlighting our incredible JAM project and learning more about what archaeology is really like. So what is JAM? JAM stands for Jarrow Archaeological Mission. This project, made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, is helping us […]
Peace-Weavers, Wise Women, Warrior Queens – Anglo-Saxon Women
The 8th of March is International Women’s Day, a day of celebrating the achievements and impact of women in all areas of society. To commemorate this day coming up soon, we wanted to highlight some incredible Anglo-Saxon women. In their own way, each of these women held very important roles. They made a very real […]
Spotlight: Jarrow Library Knit and Natter Group
Welcome back to our spotlight series where we are kicking off with our first spotlight of 2026! This spotlight focuses on some objects made by the Jarrow Library Knit & Natter group. They have kindly allowed us to display these pieces for a time. The Jarrow Library Knit & Natter group formed within Jarrow Focus, and its members meet weekly to […]