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Tudor Heart saved for the nation
The British Museum’s campaign to raise £3.5 million to acquire a heart shaped pendant bearing imagery associated with the court of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon has achieved its goal. Discovered by a metal detectorist near Birmingham in 2019, the pendant is the most complete piece of jewellery associated with the Tudor court ever found (see CA 397 and CA 429). More than 45,000 members of the public made individual donations, raising 10% of the required amount, while the appeal was also supported by a £1.75 million grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, with other significant contributions from the Julia Rausing Trust, the Art Fund, and the American Friends of the British Museum. The British Museum is now working on plans for a future national tour of the heart pendant, including displaying it in Warwickshire, close to where the artefact was found.
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland seeks new home
The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is seeking to acquire and sympathetically redevelop a historic building – Bristo Place, once the southern gateway into Edinburgh – in order to create a new, permanent home for Scotland’s oldest antiquarian society (founded in 1780) that will serve as an independent heritage hub for the whole nation.
The Society is set to contribute at least £600,000 of its own investments to this cause, but it needs to raise another £1.5 million by January 2027 to secure the building. For more information about the fundraising campaign (which was launched on Burns Night) and how to contribute, see http://www.socantscot.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Heritage-Hub Campaign-Brochure.pdf.
Roman altars on display
Two altars from a Roman fort near Edinburgh have been acquired for the National Collection and will be displayed in a major exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland from 14 November.
Both dating to the AD 140s, the altars were found at Inveresk, where they once formed part of the most northerly known temple of Mithras in the Roman Empire. One bears a face of the sun god Sol that could be lit from behind, as well as representations of the four seasons; the other honours Mithras himself, alongside carvings of Apollo and ravens. They were dedicated by a legionary centurion whose abbreviated name appears as G CAS FLA – probably Gaius Cassius Flavianus – and conservation indicates that both were once brightly painted.
The altars will feature in Roman Scotland: life on the edge of empire, which will run from 14 November 2026 to 18 April 2027. For more information, see http://www.nms.ac.uk/exhibitions/roman-scotland-life-on-the-edge-of-empire.
Text: Kathryn Krakowka / Photo: © Duncan McGlynn
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