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Lecture
Feasting with Latinus: the earliest Christians of Whithorn
The excavations led by the late Peter Hill at Whithorn, Dumfries and Galloway are widely understood as revealing one of the earliest monasteries in Britain. New analysis and dating evidence by the Cold Case Whithorn project is forcing a rethink of the earliest phases of the sequence. A poorly-understood late... -
Book chapter
The Matter of Slavery at National Museums Scotland
In the ‘Industry and Empire’ gallery of the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh sits a gleaming cup of white porcelain, resting on its saucer. Text rendered in black lettering around the body of the cup reads: ‘and so it was that those long sea/journeys became yonder awa awa’....Laurenson, Sarah
Colonial Histories and Legacies, Slavery, Scotland, and Industry and Empire
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Magazine article
'Mrs Lovi's beads' In: Herstory - women who changed the world
To mark Women's History Month, female curators at National Museums Scotland have each selected an inspiration woman represented in the collection. From entomologist to artist to queen, their legacy lives on.Higgitt, Rebekah
Women's History Month, relative density of liquids, specific gravity, scientific instruments, Isabella Lovi, and aerometrical beads
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Journal article
History in the balance: a newly-discovered Anglo-Saxon runic inscription from Croy, Highland
A recent reassessment of the National Museums Scotland’s Viking-age collections revealed a new runic inscription from a previously overlooked scrap of copper alloy. The Croy Hoard is a mixed collection of objects deposited in the late 9th century AD, not far from what is now Inverness Airport. The Hoard was...Maldonado, Adrián
Old English rune, Viking-age collections, Anglo-Saxon runes, Early Medieval Scotland, Runic inscription, The Croy Hoard, and Bronze balance beam
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Journal article
Textiles in a Viking Age hoard: Identifying ephemeral traces of textiles in metal corrosion products
This paper presents a novel method and terminology to identify and describe textiles from ephemeral traces in metal corrosion products. Since the 1980s, mineralised textiles (positive and negative casts in Janaway’s terminology) have been an important source of archaeological evidence. A major issue now is the identification of textiles in...Davis, Mary ; Harris, Susanna
Textile , Mineralisation, Silver, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Microscopy, Copper corrosion, Viking age, and Anglo-Saxon
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Journal article
A Note on Modern (Fake) Shabtis as Tourist Art
This brief communication is a discussion of several styles of shabti figures identified during the National Museums Scotland review of Egyptian material in Scottish collections. The shabtis’ combination of historical styles, nonsensical inscriptions and material composition clearly characterize them as modern productions, despite several recent publications identifying them as Roman...Potter, Daniel M
modern, tourist art, pseudo-shabti, and Shabti
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Blog post
The value of broken things: fragments from the Bronze Age
The value of an object is often framed in terms of its completeness. As individuals and as a museum, we like pristine things and try to keep them that way. If something breaks, we repair it. If it is broken beyond repair, we may replace it. And yet, sometimes it...Knight, Matthew
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Journal article
Matriarchal Journeys: Identity and Generational Exchange in the Travels of Lady Grisell Baillie and Margaret Calderwood of Polton, <i>c.</i> 1730–1757
In 1731 Lady Grisell Baillie began a tour through Europe to Naples with her husband, two daughters, son-in-law and eldest granddaughter. Prompted by an order abroad for her son-in-law’s health, the journey to and from Naples took in cultural sites and offered unique opportunities for shopping. In 1756 Margaret Calderwood...Taylor, Emily
Scotland, women, dress, learning, shopping, and 18th century
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Journal article
Nouveaux départs ? Écrire l’histoire de l’art par ses déplacements
Depuis une dizaine d’années, on observe un glissement dans l’historiographie française des institutions culturelles et dans les études sur la vie sociale et culturelle des œuvres. Dans le cadre d’une histoire classique des collections, qui perçoit l’artefact surtout à travers la formation des collections privées et publiques, des logiques de... -
Podcast
Iona and the Vikings: how raids on Iona introduced a new age
In this week’s episode of the podcast, Jackie discovers what brought the invaders from the north to Scotland, and what encouraged them to stay. Joined by Dr Adrián Maldonado, the Glenmorangie Research Fellow at National Museums Scotland and an expert in the Scottish Viking Age, Jackie looks at how the...Bird, Jackie ; Maldonado, Adrián
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Abstract
At the edge of the waterscape: Interaction at the boundaries between drainage basins in early prehistoric Britain and Ireland
River catchments and drainage basins are being increasingly used as units of ecological and socio-political organisation. There is also ample evidence in the archaeological record that knowledge of drainage basins was important in the past. This paper will explore a wide array of archaeological evidence that the watershed boundaries of...Goldberg, Martin
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Book
The late Roman silver treasure from Traprain Law
Excavated from Traprain Law, East Lothian, Scotland, in May 1919, was one of the most spectacular discoveries of Roman silver ever made in Europe - and the biggest hoard of `hacksilver': 23kg, battered, crushed and chopped up. Blame for the destruction has hitherto been laid at the door of `barbarians'...Hunter, Fraser ; Kaufmann-Heinimann, Annemarie ; Painter, Kenneth
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Book chapter
Other hoards with Roman Hacksilber
This appendix offers background and analysis of all Hacksilber hoards, defined here as hoards with cut, folded or crushed Roman plate.Hunter, Fraser
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Book chapter
The Treasure of Traprain: conclusions and questions
Tackling the Hacksilber hoard from Traprain Law is an imposing project. Not only in the primary publication by Alexander Curle a masterly analysis that has survived the test of time, but the sheer scale of the material is daunting. Our work suggests that the surviving 23kg consisted of 327 individual...Hunter, Fraser ; Kaufmann-Heinimann, Annemarie ; Painter, Kenneth
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Book chapter
After the Traprain Treasure: Hacksilber hoarding in 5th/6th-century Scotland
After the supply of late Roman silver was cut off in the 5th century, this precious metal became a finite resource in northern Britain until new supplies were introduced during the Viking Age. In between these two periods of abundant supply, the chronology of silver use and recycling in early...Goldberg, Martin ; Blackwell, Alice
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Book chapter
Hacksilber in the Roman period and beyond
Although Alexander Curle was able to call on the Ballinrees (Coleraine) hoard from Northern Ireland as a parallel for the hacking of Traprain, it was not until Wilhelm Grunhagen's 1954 study of the Großbodungen hoard (Thüringen/Germany) [Illus 41.1] that Hacksilber saw serious study as a concept in the Roman period....Hunter, Fraser
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Book chapter
Hacking the Traprain Treasure
The Traprain Law Treasure1 has traditionally been viewed as a group of late Roman silver that met an unfortunate fate. Most vessels had been completely distorted, often by multiple hacking phases, with fittings removed, rims severed, footrings pushed out of position and sometimes even split lengthwise. Many had been crushed...Hunter, Fraser
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Book chapter
'I have had a great day': A O Curle and the discovery of the Traprain Treasure
The recovery of the Traprain Treasure was by far the greatest moment in Alexander Ormiston Curle's antiquarian career [Illus 1.1]. It is safe to assume that at the outset of the work in East Lothian on behalf of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, he had no expectation of such...Clarke, David
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Book chapter
Introduction
On 12 May 1919, a workman was digging on the Iron Age hillfort of Traprain Law in East Lothian, some 30km east of Edinburgh in south-east Scotland [p1]. The work had only restarted for a fortnight: excavations had been in abeyance for three years in the turmoil of the Great...Hunter, Fraser ; Kaufmann-Heinimann, Annemarie ; Painter, Kenneth
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Book chapter
Foreword
The late Roman silver hoard from Traprain Law is one of the treasures of National Museums Scotland and has excited international attention since its discovery a century ago.Breward, Christopher
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Blog post
The many lives of the Traprain Treasure’s Roman silver
One of the greatest treasures of our museum is the late Roman silver hoard from Traprain Law in East Lothian, which fills three display cases in the Early People gallery. Found in excavations in 1919, it’s been on display pretty much constantly since 1920. Now, more than a century after...Hunter, Fraser
Traprain Treasure, Silver, and Roman
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Podcast
The Galloway Hoard
Listen in as Dr Adrián Maldonado and Dr Tim Carlisle discuss: ‘What is a hoard?’ and ‘what makes The Galloway Hoard so unique?’Maldonado, Adrián ; Carlisle, Tim
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Newspaper article
Shedding new light on some of Scotland's greatest Roman silver treasures - Dr Fraser Hunter
One of the greatest treasures on display in the National Museum of Scotland is the late Roman silver hoard from Traprain Law in East Lothian, which fills three cases in the Early People gallery. Found in excavations in 1919, it’s been on display pretty much constantly since 1920. Now, more...Hunter, Fraser
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Journal article
Scottish Edwardian hoards, 2019
The following three hoards were submitted to the Scottish Treasure Trove Unit in 2019, but Covid restrictions led to severe delays in identification and analysisHolmes, N M McQ. ; Savage, Carl
numismatic hoards, metal-detecting, coins, Treasure Trove Unit, Roslin, Midlothian, Cockburnspath, Berwickhire, and Caverton, Morebattle, Scottish Borders
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Lecture
Viking Panic? Looking for the 9-12th centuries in Argyll
The story of early medieval Argyll is told through overarching narratives: the arrival of the Scots of Dál Riata; incoming missionaries in the age of saints; and the invasions of the Vikings. A recent reassessment of the National Museums Scotland collections from this period emphasises how material culture tells a... -
Journal article
Framing colonial war loot: The ‘captured’ spolia opima of Kunwar Singh
This article investigates the provenance of four artefacts associated with the military commander Kunwar Singh (1777–1858), who fought a guerrilla campaign against the British during the Indian Uprising of 1857–8. By analysing how these objects were documented and inscribed, it can be shown that, through the invocation of what is... -
Book chapter
The Viking-Age Silver and Gold of Scotland
The Viking Age in Scotland reviews two decades of research that have taken place since the last archaeological survey of the Vikings in Scotland, published in 1998. Advances in scientific analysis have greatly improved our understanding of Scandinavian daily life between the late eighth and fifteenth centuries, and new discoveries...Goldberg, Martin
Archaeology, Scotland, Migration , Economy , Viking, Burial, Settlement, and Norse
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Abstract
Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard: Object Biographies in the Galloway Hoard
The stereotype of Viking-age hoards in Britain is that they are products of an international context of mobility, migration and raiding, buried at times of stress or under duress. Initially heralded as a ‘Viking’ hoard par excellence, the ongoing conservation and research on the Galloway Hoard from southwest Scotland continues...Goldberg, Martin ; Davis, Mary
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Book chapter
Practices of metal deposition in Late Bronze Age Scotland
One of Eugène Warmenbol's many contributions has been to provide cross-contextual and nuanced perspectives on Bronze Age metalwork deposition in Europe. It is in this spirit that this contribution approaches metalwork from Late Bronze Age Scotland (1100-800BC), with focus on single finds, hoards and settlements. The ways in which objects...Knight, Matthew G
Scotland , settlements, hoards, Late Bronze Age , Eugène Warmenbol, finds, and metalwork deposition
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Book chapter
From Ultima Thule: fragmentation in the Bronze Age metalwork of Scotland
While ancient Thule was probably located beyond modern Scotland (Breeze & Wilkins 2018), the title of this contribution seems appropriate since Scotland was on the margin of the Bronze Age world depicted by Patrice Brun (1991: fig. 8, insert). After a brief period when copper and gold were used, bronze...O'Connor, Brendan ; Cowie, Trevor
Scottish metalwork, bronze axes, hoards, Bronze Age, gold, Scottish Archaeological Research Framework, Thule, and copper
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Journal article
A previously unrecorded 'British Victory' type for Septimius Severus
Most people with an interest in the history of the Roman period in Britain will be aware of the series of coins struck in the names of the emperor Septimius Severus and his sons, Caracalla and Geta, following military campaigns carried out against native tribes in present-day Scotland during the...Holmes, N M McQ.
coins, Rome mint, military campaigns in Scotland, and Septimius Severus
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Journal article
The Methven, Perthshire, hoard
A hoard of 68 coins, with the remains of a pottery vessel, was found during excavation work for a building extension in the back garden of a house in Methven.1 A date of deposition of 1663 or later is indicated by the presence of coin no.48 in the catalogue below.Holmes, N M Mcq.
coin hoard, Numismatics, and Medieval
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Journal article
Science and the City: Spaces and geographies of Metropolitan Science
The Metropolitan Science research project, based at the University of Kent from 2017–2020 and designed to run alongside the Science City gallery project, explores the significant place of craft, trade and commercial institutions in the development of London’s technical and experimental knowledge cultures. Drawing on this research, this paper presents...Higgitt, Rebekah ; Kilburn-Toppin, Jasmine ; Moxham, Noah
trade, London, commerce, institutions, practice, craft, early modern, knowledge, and spaces
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Lecture
Dr Fraser Hunter: War and Diplomacy on Rome's Northern Frontier
The story of Roman Scotland often gets told from the Roman point of view, with a focus on the army and its actions. But the legions did not simply march into an empty landscape. The Iron Age peoples of Scotland reacted to this invasion in many different ways, from outright...Hunter, Fraser
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Podcast
Galloway Hoard
In September 2014, a metal detectorist discovered the rarest collection of Viking-age objects ever found to date in Britain. The Galloway hoard displays a remarkable variety of material and treasures, not only from the United Kingdom but as far as central Asia. In this episode, Dr. Martin Goldberg, the Senior...Goldberg, Martin ; Jarman, Cat
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Journal article
Italian pottery in Scotland
John Hurst, in his seminal paper on Italian pottery imported into Britain and Ireland, stated that ‘pottery datable between the thirteenth and twentieth centuries, has been found on over one hundred sites in Britain and Ireland but did not reach Scotland' (Hurst 1991, 212). In an attempt to up-date the...Haggarty, George R
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Journal article
Social hierarchy and the choice of metal recycling at Anyang, the last capital of Bronze Age Shang China
Anyang, the last capital of the Chinese Shang dynasty, became one of the largest metal consumers in Eurasia during the second millennium BCE. However, it remains unclear how Anyang people managed to sustain such a large supply of metal. By considering the chemical analysis of bronze objects within archaeological contexts,...Liu, Ruiliang ; Pollard, A Mark ; Cao, Qin ; Liu, Cheng ; Sainsbury, Victoria …
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Book chapter
The Renaissance reimagined: Minton, Majolica, and Maiolica
From about 1850, the Renaissance Revival inspired the design of both architecture and the decorative arts in Britain, prompting Minton & Co. to bring the arts of the Renaissance to the Staffordshire potteries. Within the context of its ongoing use of historical examples, the firm successfully adopted and adapted Renaissance...Blakey, Claire
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Conference paper (unpublished)
The Storrar Coverlet: uncovering a story of Baltic trade
This beautiful double-weave coverlet, dated 1729, was recently acquired by National Museums Scotland from the collection of a family from Fife in the east of Scotland. In the family’s possession for generations, the coverlet has been passed down, tradition has it, from mother to daughter. The double-weave technique was used...Wyld, Helen
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Journal article
Solving a silver jigsaw: a new hoard of Roman hacksilver from Fife
Recently discovered in Fife, the Dairsie Hoard represents the earliest-known evidence found outside the empire for Roman use of hacksilver to secure their frontiers.Hunter, Fraser
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Journal article
Denarii diplomacy: exploring Scotland’s silver age
Silver was introduced to the inhabitants of Iron Age Scotland by the Roman army. An exhibition currently running in Edinburgh reveals the impact of this exotic material throughout the 1st millennium AD.Blackwell, Alice
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Book chapter
This Post Mortem Palace
This volume explores the transformation of scientific exhibitions and museums during the nineteenth century. Contributors focus on comparative case studies across Britain and America, examining the people, spaces, display practices, experiences, and politics that worked not only to define the museum, but to shape public science and scientific knowledge during...Alberti, S J M M
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Book chapter
A pathological pot
In this book the eighteenth century Enlightenment receives an important reassessment, using an astonishing range of materials and objects drawn from Europe and beyond, including artefacts from India and China, West Africa and Polynesia. A series of authoritative essays written by experts in the field explores the full range of...Alberti, S J M M
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Conference paper (published)
Creating a research framework and strategy for early gold in Britain's auriferous regions
This presentation outlines a current AHRC-funded initiative that has created an international network of those involved in the study of gold, to create a Research Framework and Strategy relating to gold use in Britain's auriferous regions, 2450-800 BC. This deals with issues of locating and characterising the source areas; of...Sheridan, J A
Bronze, sourcing, goldworking, Chalcolithic, and Gold
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Conference paper (unpublished)
Roman silver transformed: Hacksilber, its nature, uses and effects
Of the various forms of precious metal in the Roman world, Hacksilber is perhaps the least glamorous. These cut and crushed fragments of silver have received much less attention than intact plate or coinage. Yet they can cast fresh light on the ways in which precious metal was used in...Hunter, Fraser