Sweet Chestnut Iron Age European Inspired Shield Earrings – Museum Pattern Design
A pair of handmade sweet chestnut wood shield-shaped earrings, featuring a design inspired by historic Iron Age European artwork preserved in the collections of the British Museum.
The pattern comes from one of the British Museum’s published pattern books, based on decorative work found on an ancient sword hilt. The original archaeological objects belong to the wider artistic traditions of Iron Age Europe, where highly developed geometric, curving and repeating motifs were used to decorate weapons, jewellery and other objects.
Iron Age European art — particularly what is often described as Celtic or La Tène art — is famous for its flowing curves, spirals, interwoven forms and intricate pattern work. The British Museum’s collections contain numerous examples of this visual language on swords, scabbards and other metalwork. Some pieces date back more than two thousand years.
I have taken this historic pattern and reinterpreted it as a contemporary piece of wearable art, laser printing the design onto sweet chestnut before laser cutting the shield-shaped earrings and finishing them by hand sanding.
Exploring ancestral design
Part of the inspiration behind this piece comes from my own exploration of ancestral European heritage and an unexpected realisation while working with Māori-inspired forms: some of the visual ideas that drew me towards Māori design also appear in the older artistic traditions of Europe.
That doesn’t mean the cultures are historically connected — they developed independently, in very different parts of the world — but humans have repeatedly used similar visual ideas to express movement, balance, relationship, nature and interconnectedness. Spirals, flowing lines, symmetry and repeated geometric forms can be found across many artistic traditions.
For me, discovering those visual parallels has become an interesting way of exploring ancestry while also recognising that beautiful patterns don’t belong to only one culture. They can tell us something about the remarkably human tendency to find meaning in shape, repetition, movement and natural geometry.
These earrings are therefore a contemporary artistic interpretation inspired by historical European material, rather than archaeological reproductions or museum artefacts.
The earrings are finished with stainless-steel findings. If you have a metal allergy or sensitivity, the findings can be changed to another suitable material on request. Alternative materials may incur an additional charge, depending on the findings selected.
Each pair is made from natural sweet chestnut, so variations in grain, colour and small natural markings are part of the character of the wood and make every pair individual.
A piece of jewellery bringing together ancient European design, natural timber, archaeological inspiration and contemporary handmade craftsmanship — with a little bit of ancestral exploration built into the pattern.
