Search Constraints
Search Results
-
Audio
The Declaration of Arbroath
2020 marks the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, one of Scotland's most important historical artefacts. To mark the anniversary we spoke to two experts to understand more about how it was created, and why it still resonates today. In this podcast we are joined by National Museums Scotland's...Wylie, Alice ; Blackwell, Alice ; Broun, Dauvit
-
Video
Fragments of the Bronze Age
Dr Matt Knight FSAScot, Curator of Prehistory at National Museums Scotland presents “Fragments of the Bronze Age. The destruction and deposition of metalwork in Britain.”, an account of research on the remains of bronze age metal objects, commonly retrieved as hoards. With thanks to Society Fellow Sir Angus Grossart QC...Knight, Matthew G
-
Video
The Kingdom of the Scots - A virtual guided tour
Lydia Prosser, Curator of Medieval Archaeology and History, presents a personalised tour of our Kingdom of the Scots gallery. Discover collections that chart the development of Scotland into the nation we know today, from the early medieval period up to the union with England in 1707. See highlights of our...Prosser, Lydia
-
Podcast
From The Hobbit to Early Christian Burial in Scotland, with Adrián Maldonado
Kate Buchanan is joined by Adrián Maldonado to discuss Adrián’s journey to studying medieval Scottish history and his work on early Christian burial in Scotland and his current work with the Glenmorangie Research Project.Buchanan, Kate ; Maldonado, Adrián
-
Blog post
Looting Scotland in the Viking Age
In 795 AD one of the first recorded Viking raids in Britain took place at the monastery of Iona in what is now Scotland. Dozens of raids and battles would follow, leading to the plunder of people, cattle, and, of course, portable wealth by Vikings.Maldonado, Adrián
-
Blog post
These are not Viking swords
Swords of the Viking Age are some of the most iconic objects of the early medieval period. The very word ‘Viking’ conjures images of warriors, at least judging by the covers of books on Viking-age history and archaeology.Maldonado, Adrián
-
Blog post
Romans in your letterbox
One of our most prized Roman artefacts has received the ultimate accolade – it’s featured on a Royal Mail stamp.Hunter, Fraser
-
Book chapter
Mementoes of power and conquest: Sikh jewellery in the collection of National Museums Scotland
This chapter traces the historical trajectory of pieces of jewellery and personal effects in the collection of National Museums Scotland which once belonged to the last Sikh ruler of Panjab, Maharaja Duleep Singh (1838–93). Deposed from the throne after the Second Anglo–Sikh War, exiled and deprived of his possessions, religion...Voigt, Friederike
Post-Colonial Studies , War Studies, Imperial/Colonial History , Cultural History, and Museum & Gallery Studies
-
Journal article
Gold in Britain’s auriferous regions, 2450–800 BC
Incorruptible and brilliant, and shining like the sun, gold has always attracted attention. From its earliest known use at Varna around 4500 BC, this metal has been utilised to make some of the finest objects humans have ever possessed. Gold use, and the know-how to work it, arrived in Britain...Knight, Matthew G ; Sheridan, J A ; Horak, Jana
-
Book chapter
Worked bone, antler, teeth and shell
The Sculptor’s Cave is one of the most enigmatic prehistoric sites in Britain. Excavated in the 1920s and 1970s, new analysis of the archive has revealed a complex history of funerary and ritual activity from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman Iron Age. Using innovative methods and new techniques, this...Cruickshanks, Gemma ; Hunter, Fraser
-
Book chapter
Coarse stone
The Sculptor’s Cave is one of the most enigmatic prehistoric sites in Britain. Excavated in the 1920s and 1970s, new analysis of the archive has revealed a complex history of funerary and ritual activity from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman Iron Age. Using innovative methods and new techniques, this...Cruickshanks, Gemma
-
Book chapter
‘... one of the most remarkable traces of Roman art ... in the vicinity of the Antonine Wall.’ A forgotten funerary urn of Egyptian travertine from Camelon, and related stone vessels from Castlecary
Lawrence Keppie is as familar with laden museum shelves and antiquarian byways as he is with the mud of Walland Ditch. This paper on some remarkable finds from the Antonine Wall zone, hiding in plain sight in the stores of the National Museum, illustrates the surprises yet lurking in Wall...Hunter, Fraser
-
Book chapter
Alpine jades in the European Neolithic
Alpine jades in the European Neolithic - The ANR-funded programmes JADE 1 (2007-2011) and JADE 2 (2013-2017) investigated the production and the extraordinary diffusion of axeheads (large and small) made of Alpine jades on a Europe-wide scale. The phenomenon began during the middle of the sixth millennium BC and ended...Pétrequin, Pierre ; Pétrequin, Anne-Marie ; Sheridan, J A ; Cassen, Serge ; Gauthier, Estelle …
social organisation, European Neolithic, religion, exchange, alpine Jades, and axeheads
-
Lecture
Not just a load of old balls: Late Neolithic developments and the creation of a new world order in Orkney
The remarkable complex of large structures at Ness of Brodgar in Orkney has justly attracted worldwide attention, and has led to some contentious claims on popular TV programmes. This lecture investigates the emergence of the competitive, adventurous, innovative elite in Orkney who were responsible for building Ness of Brodgar and...Sheridan, J A
-
Lecture
Making sense of funerary monuments and funerary practices
Megalithic chamber tombs – of widely varying shape and size – loom large in the visible traces of Scotland’s Neolithic, but they formed just one element in a diverse range of practices concerned with dealing with, relating to, and commemorating the dead. This lecture explores this diversity and draws out...Sheridan, J A
-
Book chapter
Structure, metaphor and funerary practices in Neolithic Scotland
As noted elsewhere in this volume, the argument that Neolithic funerary monuments in Britain echo the design of the houses of the living, and acted as houses for the dead, was proposed by Ian Hodder in the 1980s (1982, 1984), developing an idea regarding long barrows earlier articulated by Gordon...Sheridan, Alison J
-
Lecture
An evening with Mary Queen of Scots
History Scotland welcomed Dr Anna Groundwater for a special event focusing on Mary Queen of Scots treasures at National Museum of Scotland. Read on for a link to the video, plus Dr Groundwater's suggestions for further reading and study. On 8 December, the evening of Mary Queen of Scots' birthday,...Groundwater, Anna
-
Blog post
Exhibiting Mary: challenges and opportunities
Today’s blog by David Forsyth (Principal Curator, Modern and Contemporary Scottish History, National Museums Scotland) was part of the project’s virtual workshop on ‘Re-presenting Mary: challenges and opportunities’, held on 7 August 2020. David discusses his experience of curating the last major Mary exhibit in Scotland, which also launched the...Forsyth, David
-
Blog post
Materialising Mary Queen of Scots at National Museums Scotland: A Renaissance Queen
In today’s blog, Dr Anna Groundwater (Principal Curator, Renaissance and Early Modern History, National Museums Scotland) walks us virtually through the Renaissance Gallery, at the National Museums Scotland in Chambers Street, Edinburgh, and reflects on the various Maries we create from objects.Groundwater, Anna
-
Blog post
Collecting the present
Contemporary collecting has been a hot topic for many museums for several years now. Curators have adopted several different approaches to ensuring their institutions are responsive and capturing the important issues of the time so that present and future visitors are better able to understand and learn from the experience...Breward, Chris
-
Book chapter
Introduction
At a time of heightened international interest in the colonial dimensions of museum collections, Dividing the Spoils provides new perspectives on the motivations and circumstances whereby collections were appropriated and acquired during colonial military service. Combining approaches from the fields of material anthropology, imperial and military history, this book argues...Lidchi, Henrietta ; Allan, Stuart
Post-Colonial Studies , War Studies, Imperial/Colonial History , Cultural History, and Museum & Gallery Studies
-
Book
Dividing the spoils: Perspectives on military collections and the British empire
At a time of heightened international interest in the colonial dimensions of museum collections, Dividing the Spoils provides new perspectives on the motivations and circumstances whereby collections were appropriated and acquired during colonial military service. Combining approaches from the fields of material anthropology, imperial and military history, this book argues...Lidchi , Henrietta ; Allan, Stuart
Post-Colonial Studies , War Studies, Museum & Gallery Studies , Cultural History, and Imperial/Colonial History
-
Book chapter
Indigenising folk art: eighteenth-century powder horns in British military collections
Engraved power horns are a well-known aspect of the material culture of the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), also known in North America as the French and Indian War. In looking at collections in military museums across the UK it emerged that powder horns were a distinctive form of material culture...Lidchi, Henrietta ; Allan, Stuart
Post-Colonial Studies , War Studies, Museum & Gallery Studies , Cultural History, and Imperial/Colonial History
-
Book chapter
The officers' mess: an anthropology and history of the military interior
This chapter uses a model of British Army organisational culture and historical analysis to examine the nature of the ‘military interior’ – specifically the public rooms in the officers’ mess and the artefacts found within. The authors seek to combine their expertise to create a broader understanding of how military...Kirke, Charles ; Hartwell, Nicole M
Post-Colonial Studies , War Studies, Museum & Gallery Studies , Cultural History, and Imperial/Colonial History
-
Book chapter
Seeing Tibet through soldiers' eyes: photograph albums in regimental museums
In his ‘Notes on Photography’ dated 1860 Captain Henry Shaw of the Royal Engineers itemised the uses to which photography could be applied for military and scientific purposes. He notes that over time, capturing scenes, places and persons would prove of personal interest to the photographer and more generally, justifying...Henrietta , Lidchi ; Rosanna, Nicolson
Post-Colonial Studies , War Studies, Imperial/Colonial History , Cultural History, and Museum & Gallery Studies
-
Journal article
Collecting COVID-19 at National Museums Scotland
This opinion piece discusses National Museums Scotland’s first responses to collecting COVID-19. Drawing on perspectives from social history, biomedical science and military history, this short paper contextualizes COVID-related collecting within the contexts of the organization’s programme of contemporary collecting and the nation’s ongoing socio-political journey.Laurenson, Sarah ; Robertson, Calum ; Goggins, Sophie
Scotland, Contemporary collecting, social history, military history, and medical history
-
Book chapter
Afterword: material reckonings with military histories
Looking at European developments from 2017 to 2019, the Afterword situates the volume among the resurgent interest in questions of contested histories, calls for restitution, and the resurgence of provenance research. It argues that given the varied ways European nations are addressing questions of colonial collections, it seems contradictory that...Lidchi, Henrietta
Post-Colonial Studies , Cultural History, Imperial/Colonial History , War Studies, and Museum & Gallery Studies
-
Book chapter
Making sense of Scottish Neolithic funerary monuments: tracing trajectories and understanding their rationale
This contribution offers an overview of the appearance , spread and regionally specific developmental trajectories of funerary monuments in Neolithic Scotland, setting these within the broader context of the arrival of farming groups from Brittany and northern France in the early centuries of the 4th millennium, and the subsequent expansion...Sheridan, J A
funerary monuments , Bayesian models , migration, Neolithic Scotland, passage tombs, cairns, and farming practices
-
Book chapter
A view from north of the border
In 2021, Alasdair Whittle and his colleagues published a map showing their model of the Neolithisation of Britain and Ireland featuring, a northwards and westwards spread, from the south-east corner of England, of farming as a subsistence strategy and of other novel, associated, 'things and practices' - to borrow one...Sheridan, J A
-
Journal article
‘Ironworking’, In McGalliard, S, & Wilson, D 2021 Bronze Age and Iron Age Archaeology at Thainstone Business Park, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire: An Investigation of Structures and Funerary Practices
Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd was commissioned by Axiom Project Services to undertake an archaeological excavation in advance of a commercial development at Thainstone Business Park, Aberdeenshire. Excavation identified the remains of a Middle Bronze Age roundhouse and a contemporary urned cremation cemetery. Evidence of Late Bronze Age cremation practices was...Cruickshanks, Gemma
Urn, Structure, Souterrain, Settlement, Iron Age, Bronze Age, Cremation, Cemetery, and Roundhouse
-
Journal article
‘Stone tools’, In McGalliard, S, & Wilson, D 2021 Bronze Age and Iron Age Archaeology at Thainstone Business Park, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire: An Investigation of Structures and Funerary Practices
Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd was commissioned by Axiom Project Services to undertake an archaeological excavation in advance of a commercial development at Thainstone Business Park, Aberdeenshire. Excavation identified the remains of a Middle Bronze Age roundhouse and a contemporary urned cremation cemetery. Evidence of Late Bronze Age cremation practices was...Cruickshanks, Gemma
Urn, Structure, Souterrain, Settlement, Iron Age, Bronze Age, Cremation, Cemetery, and Roundhouse
-
Journal article
Capturing decorative art - the work of Frances Priest
Within this article I hope to highlight and explore the progression of the practice of Edinburgh-based ceramic artist, Frances Priest, through works held by National Museums Scotland, and her most recent public commission for the city's Royal Edinburgh Hospital. I shall discuss her enduring passion for The Grammar of Ornament,...Rothwell, Sarah
-
-
Journal article
Review of: Alejandro Jiménez-Serrano and Juan Carlos Sánchez-León: Le Premier Nome du sud de l’Égypte au Moyen Empire, Fouilles de la mission espagnole à Qoubbet el-Haoua (Assouan) 2008–2018
At the First Cataract of the Nile in southern Egypt, the sandstone hill of Qubbet el-Hawa is the site of a large necropolis, most notably home to the tombs of local ruling officials (c. 2345–1795 BCE), as well as other burials dating up to the Roman period, a Coptic church...Maitland, Margaret
-
Journal article
Peelhill Farm: a possible Late Bronze Age weapon sacrifice in Lanarkshire
The hoard of bronze weapons found in 1961 at Peelhill Farm in South Lanarkshire remains one of the most remarkable discoveries of Late Bronze Age metalwork from Scotland, its importance reflected in the detailed account of the find published by John Coles and Jack Scott in 1963. In the present...Mörtz, Tobias ; Knight, Matthew G ; Cowie, Trevor ; Flint, Jane
Late Bronze Age, Hoard, Conflict, Ritual, and Weapons
-
Journal article
Unusual Roman Iron Age burials on the Links of Pierowall, Westray, Orkney
Antiquarian accounts and surviving finds allow two Iron Age cist-burials found in the late 18th century on the Links of Pierowall on Westray, Orkney, to be reconstructed, although no details of the bodies survive (but both were most probably inhumations); the unusual finds have not previously received full attention. One...Graham-Campbell, James ; Hunter, Fraser
-
Journal article
The Caquetoire Chair in Scotland
Jackson, Stephen
-
Journal article
An Iron Age burial with a polished stone disc from Baledgarno, Perth and Kinross
A polished stone disc which has long lurked in Dundee Museum’s collections is identified as a rare example associated with an Iron Age burial. This was an occasional but recurrent rite during the Roman Iron Age, with parallels further up the E coast as far as Shetland. Where the burial...Hunter, Fraser
-
Book chapter
'Discussion' In: Hatherley, Catherine & Murray, Ross 'Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in North-East Scotland'
The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland. Archaeological excavation in 2005 revealed a craftworking centre which had specialised in the production of iron, bronze and glass objects between the late 1st Millennium BC and early 1st Millennium AD....Hatherley, Candy ; Dungworth, David ; Hunter, Fraser ; Mclaren, Dawn
prehistory, northern Scotland, material culture, Prehistoric archaeology, and Highlands & Islands
-
Book chapter
For close observation: Tilework imagery in the architecture of Qajar Iran
When we walk into a gallery, we have a fairly good idea where the building begins and ends; and inside, while observing a painting, we are equally confident in distinguishing between the painting-proper and its frame and borders. Yet things are often more complicated. A building defines an exterior space...Voigt, Friederike
-
Book chapter
'The Stone Artefacts' In: Hatherley, Catherine & Murray, Ross 'Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in North-East Scotland'
The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland. Archaeological excavation in 2005 revealed a craftworking centre which had specialised in the production of iron, bronze and glass objects between the late 1st Millennium BC and early 1st Millennium AD....McLaren, Dawn ; Hunter, Fraser ; McGibbon, Fiona
prehistory, Highlands & Islands, material culture, Prehistoric archaeology, and northern Scotland
-
Book chapter
'Iron artefacts' In: Hatherley, Catherine & Murray, Ross 'Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in North-East Scotland'
The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland. Archaeological excavation in 2005 revealed a craftworking centre which had specialised in the production of iron, bronze and glass objects between the late 1st Millennium BC and early 1st Millennium AD....Hunter, Fraser
prehistory, Highlands & Islands, Prehistoric archaeology, material culture , and northern Scotland
-
Book chapter
'Analysis of the glass objects' In: Hatherley, Catherine & Murray, Ross 'Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in North-East Scotland'
The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland. Archaeological excavation in 2005 revealed a craftworking centre which had specialised in the production of iron, bronze and glass objects between the late 1st Millennium BC and early 1st Millennium AD....Davis, Mary ; Freestone, Ian
prehistory, Highlands & Islands, material culture, Prehistoric archaeology, and northern Scotland
-
Book chapter
Foreward [Crucible of nations: Scotland from Viking Age to Medieval Kingdom]
Crucible of Nations presents the findings of the latest phase of the long-standing relationship between National museums Scotland and Glenmorangie, a partnership which has changed understandings of early medieval Scotland through innovative research into the national collections.Breward, Christopher
-
Book chapter
Introduction [Crucible of nations: Scotland from Viking Age to Medieval Kingdom]
Horns blaring, hounds yelping, deer panting, the drum of horse's hooves galloping - the sound of the hunt brought to life on an enormous stone slab. Above the hunt scene the endless meander in and out of interlace-decorated circles, symmetrical, rhythmic and infinite in their perfection, are understandable art.Goldberg, Martin