When a spectacular array of cut-up silver artefacts was discovered at Traprain Law, East Lothian, in 1919, scholars at the time thought it was simply a case of those unruly barbarians north of Hadrian’s Wall, far too uncultured to appreciate Roman craftsmanship, hacking the fine goods they had plundered to pieces. As more recent research has shown, though, this is far from the case. Fragments like this, known as hacksilver, were deliberately portioned up to standard Roman weights and sent beyond the frontiers of empire as powerful diplomatic tools. One site in Scotland, and many more from elsewhere in Europe, have yielded similar, though smaller, collections, some containing pieces of silver vessels folded into neat parcels.
Scotland had not seen any silver before its inhabitants came into contact with the Romans, and local silver-working came another few centuries after this. (Later still, in the 12th century AD, David I was known to have minted his coinage using Carlisle silver, while the first written mention of local silver mining does not come until the 14th century.) The first Roman silver to reach Scotland came with the army, but soon imperial authorities also began to use coins as gifts or bribes to build relationships with local Iron Age groups. These coins had no value as currency, yet they were not melted down. Instead they were prized in their own right, as markers of power, prestige, and friends in high places, and were buried in hoards at sites across the country. Yet this esteem also led to less salubrious exchanges: four ceramic moulds for forging denarii are known from Scottish Iron Age sites, whose inhabitants may have hoped to trade their counterfeits with the rest of Roman Britain.
Nonetheless, the precious metal held on to its high value throughout the first millennium – something that is explored in Scotland’s Early Silver, a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland. Unlike the coins, which were kept intact, pieces of splendid silverware were melted down and reworked for centuries to come. By the late 3rd century, moreover, silver coins were often debased with copper, so hacksilver from high-quality vessels, ready for recycling, became the norm for payments.
