Scar plaque

I'm in the middle of a big project to revamp 2 galleries at the Orkney Museum. Today the curator was emptying cases and we were planning out sizes and positions for the objects from the Scar Viking boat burial.

The whalebone plaque is amazing to see inside a case but it is a privilege to get this close. Until now I've been focussed on the woman it was buried with but today I was suddenly struck by the connection to the person who made it well over a thousand years ago.

No one knows for sure what it is and there have only been a handful of them found but the best guess is that it's aboard for smoothing pleats in linen... yes, it's a Viking ironing board!