Museum news
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
Galloway Hoard
Breathing new life into an Anglo-Saxon brooch – National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh
This is one of the seven Anglo-Saxon disc brooches found within a silver vessel discovered by a metal detectorist in September 2014 – one of more than 100 objects that were subsequently excavated and are now known as the Galloway…
Galloway Hoard jar belonged to medieval bishop
Discovered by a metal-detectorist in 2014, the hoard comprises more than 100 objects of gold, silver, copper-alloy, glass, earth, crystal, and other minerals...
Museum News
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
Illuminating a far-travelled vessel
The image shown here represents a fire altar with a triple-pointed crown in the flames as a central motif, surrounded by plant scrolls containing stylised leopards and tigers.
Secrets of the Galloway Hoard
With a large amount of gold and Anglo-Saxon objects otherwise unseen in Scotland, the Viking Age hoard discovered in Galloway in 2014 is unusual in a number of ways. What do we know so far about this complex hoard? And what more might its contents tell us? As the Galloway Hoard goes on display in a new exhibition and research continues, Martin Goldberg explores the answers, and the new questions, the enigmatic assemblage offers up.
Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard: secrets of a Viking Age collection from south-west Scotland
Buried c.AD 900, the Galloway Hoard is thought to be Scotland’s earliest-known Viking Age hoard. In the years since its discovery in 2014, wide-ranging research has illuminated its eclectic and often unique contents. As a new exhibition opens, exploring the story so far, Martin Goldberg takes us through some of the latest findings.
This week: Hoards
No one knows for certain why Viking Age people chose to bury their most treasured possessions underground. According to one 13th-century source, the influential Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson, they did it because Odin – the Norse god who oversees Valhalla – had decreed that a man will have the use in the afterlife of any treasure he buried while still alive. More recently, however, archaeologists and historians have preferred more earthbound explanations for the presence in the British Isles of so many Viking Age 'hoards'.