During the 1st millennium AD, across Europe, power and prestige were expressed in two portable materials: silver and gold. These precious metals underpinned the emergence of early medieval kingdoms by providing the raw materials for objects that were used to create, contest, and reflect status within and between societies. Today, they also provide a key source of evidence for understanding reactions to the political vacuum created by the disintegration of the Roman Empire.
Silver from this transitional period has formed the focus of 15 years of research at National Museums Scotland, working with the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie in Germany to establish an international research network investigating regional pictures of silver use across northern Europe. Now a new volume, Silver beyond Empire (see ‘Further reading’), draws these contributions together to provide the first comparative, international, and cross-disciplinary study of this powerful and valuable material during a pivotal period in Europe’s history.
The roots of this project lie in the special status of silver in Scotland. While parts of temperate Europe favoured gold, silver was the most important precious metal in northern Britain for more than 700 years (c.AD 200-900). It was introduced to Scotland by Rome via subsidies, military pay, diplomacy, and loot, first as denarii and later as hacksilver, and rapidly became a vital means of expressing power and prestige in the lands beyond the Roman frontier. Indeed, silver’s imperial connotations may have been a key part of its attraction.
Sherds CA 408