Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Clonmacnoise Crozier/archive1

The Clonmacnoise Crozier is a late 11th-century Insular crozier that would have been used as a ceremonial staff for bishops and high-status abbots. Discovered before 1821 in Clonmacnoise monastery in County Offaly, Ireland, it has a long shaft and a curved crook containing elements of Viking art. Well-preserved, it may have been associated with Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (d. 549), but little is known of its provenance or rediscovery in the 18th or early 19th century. It is largely intact and is one of the best preserved surviving pieces of Insular metalwork. The crozier was transferred to the Kildare Street branch of the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) on its founding in 1890. The archaeologist and art historian Griffin Murray has described the crozier as "one of finest examples of early medieval metalwork from Ireland".