Travel-Book of Kells-Calligraphy

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 24-Aug-25 this trackable had survived for 2.0 years and had been moved by 4 cachers, for an average drop every 185 days, or 2.0 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

In 2022, we traveled to Scotland and Ireland. I am always alert for items that can be converted to travel bugs. This item is a metal pendant made in the form of an ornate illustration in the Book of Kells.

The Book of Kells is located in the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland. The book is an illustrated manuscript of the the four Gospels of the New Testament. It was created about 800 AD, in a Columban monastery, in either Ireland, Scotland or England, or it may have only had contributors from each of these areas. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, an early form of Latin. The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, County Meath, which was the home of the book for centuries.

Kells Abbey was pillaged by Vikings many times at the beginning of the 9th century, and how the book survived is not known. The earliest historical reference to the book and the book's presence at Kells, can be found in a 1007 entry in the Annals of Ulster. This entry records that "the great Gospel of Columkille, (Columba) the chief relic of the Western World, was wickedly stolen during the night from the western sacristy of the great stone church at Cenannas on account of its wrought shrine". The manuscript was recovered a few months later, minus its golden and bejewelled cover, "under a sod". It is generally assumed that the "great Gospel of Columkille" is the Book of Kells. If this is correct, then the book was in Kells by 1007 and had been there long enough for thieves to learn of its presence. The force of ripping the manuscript free from its cover may account for the pages missing from the beginning and end of the Book of Kells.

The extravagant illustrations and ornamentation of the Book of Kells surpass those of other Insular (Great Britain and Ireland) Gospel books. It is regarded as a masterwork of Western calligraphy. The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with the ornate swirling motifs typical of Insular art. Figures of humans, animals and mythical beasts, together with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colors, enliven the manuscript's pages. The script of the text appears to be the work of at least three different scribes. The lettering is in iron gall ink on velum (calf skin), and the colors used were derived from a wide range of substances, some of which were imported from distant lands.