Piecing together the puzzle: understanding the Late Roman hacksilver from the Traprain Hoard

Excavation work at Traprain Law, an Iron Age hillfort in East Lothian, some 30km east of Edinburgh, was interrupted by the turmoil of the First World War. Two weeks after work began again on 12 May 1919, George Pringle loosened the soil with the tip of his pick and pulled out a Roman silver vessel. This was the first artefact to be found from what would prove to be the largest hoard yet known of Late Roman hacksilver – silver which has been chopped, cut, and crushed. More than a century later, an equally massive 784-page study has been published that tells us what the hoard represents in terms of the art and lifestyles of people from both sides of Hadrian’s Wall, as Chris Catling reports.

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Current Archaeology

November 2, 2022

There is a multitude of stories about the Traprain Law hoard, and many of them are told by a book recently published by National Museums Scotland (see ‘Further reading’). We learn about the discovery of the hoard, the press and public interest, and the concern that the discovery would spark unauthorised digging by treasure hunters. The ownership of the hoard was happily settled by the ‘patriotic generosity’ of the landowner in donating it to the National Museum of Scotland, after which there followed much discussion about the techniques to be used to conserve the find – including whether and how to unfold those objects that had been deliberately bent and crushed. Discovered in 1

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