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Cheapside Hoard of 17th-century jewels set to dazzle at Museum of London
A king's ransom of Tudor and Jacobean pieces uncovered by
workmen 100 years ago to be displayed together for first time
'Priceless' emerald timepiece found among 350-year-old Cheapside Hoard under cellar floor in 1912 goes on display (Daily Mail)
Who stashed the Cheapside Hoard? Exhibition sheds new light on 'most important' collection of Elizabethan jewellery ever discovered (Independent)
Exhibit information:
The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels (London Museum)
A king's ransom of Tudor and Jacobean pieces uncovered by
workmen 100 years ago to be displayed together for first time
much more at Guardian link above; more links, also with pictures:The entire glittering Cheapside Hoard – hundreds of pieces of golden and gem-studded Tudor and Jacobean jewellery – is to go on display at the Museum of London next autumn, together with a possible murder mystery story, for the first time since a workman's pickaxe smashed through the brick floor of a London cellar more than a century ago.
The blow exposed one of the most spectacular buried treasures ever found, and the workmen evidently scrambled to grab every shining fragment, aware they had a ready market in an enigmatic figure known to them as Stoney Jack – famous among London navvies for buying their more interesting finds in pubs, cash down, no questions asked.
What they had found, in an old house being demolished on Cheapside, just a five-minute walk from the present museum at London Wall, was extraordinary. The hoard of almost 500 pieces was a 17th-century goldsmith's stock – worth a king's ransom then and priceless now. Like many remaining mysteries about the hoard, it is not known how much Stoney Jack paid, but a contemporary recorded that the workmen vanished on a drinking spree which lasted for months.
"Nothing in the world comes close," said Museum of London curator Hazel Forsyth, who has spent years studying the brooches and necklaces, rings and chains, pearls and rubies, scent bottles and fan holders, two carved gems which date back 1,300 years to Byzantium – and a watch set into a hollow carved out of one stupendous emerald which was originally the size of an apple.
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'Priceless' emerald timepiece found among 350-year-old Cheapside Hoard under cellar floor in 1912 goes on display (Daily Mail)
Who stashed the Cheapside Hoard? Exhibition sheds new light on 'most important' collection of Elizabethan jewellery ever discovered (Independent)
Exhibit information:
The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels (London Museum)