The Galloway Hoard in context

I have posted several times about the Galloway Hoard, deposited within a long lost timber building about the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries and which was found in Kirkcudbrightshire in 2014

The magazine Discover has an article which draws upon the recent deciferment of the runic inscription on an arm bracelet which identifies the hoard as the property of a community. It then sets out, guided by an expert from the National Museums of Scotland, to offer an interpretation of various aspects of the carefully buried objects and whether the objects were loot concealed by Vikings or if they might be wealth garnered through trade with or by the Vikings in an area whose political allegiance was shifting between different rulers at the time.  

The article can be read at Mystery Solved for the Galloway Hoard Runes of the Viking Era

More details about the Galloway Hoard

As so often happens when one writes about an archaeological discovery and link to online report about it a day or two later there appears a more detailed report which one is also keen to share. 

The other day I posted about work on a runic inscription found on one of the pieces in the Galloway Hoard in The latest insight into the Galloway Hoard. I have now found a more detailed account of this latest research on the website of Popular Mechanics. It is well worth looking at and indicates with its various instances of items that were named as the property of individuals that this was a more literate society that one might initially have imagined. Much of this will doubtless remain hypothetical but named personal items of adornment suggests a degree of sophistication.

The article can be seen at Experts Just Decoded a Big Mystery Surrounding a Famous Viking Treasure

The latest insight into the Galloway Hoard

The continuing investigation of the Galloway Hoard of silver from the Viking era has now yields a tentative reading of a runic inscription which may help to explain the nature of the hoard as that of a single community rather than just an individual or family’s accumulated loot, or if so, then as loot accumulated by a community, with a shared sense of identity, of some type.

The research can be read in a summary from The Independent at Owner of Viking Age ‘Galloway Hoard’ of silver and gold finally found

Further insights into the Galloway Hoard

Ten years after its discovery the Galloway Hoard continues to reveal more about itself. The latest discovery to be presented is that the lidded vessel that was found wrapped in cloth is now assigned an Iranian origin. This points to trading links stretching half way across what was then the known world, bringing a piece of silverware with Zoroastrian imagery to become part of a hoard of Christian artefacts buried in south west Scotland. Given its size and shape, its being made of precious metal and having the cloth covering all makes me wonder if, whatever its origins, it had been used in England or Scotland as a ciborium in a monastery or large church. 

The BBC News report about it and about its impending display in a new British Museum exhibition can be seen at Viking-age treasure came to Scotland from West Asia

Other recent reports from the same channel about the cleaning, conservation and understanding of the items which comprise the hoard can be seen at Galloway Viking-age treasure hoard begins national tour, at Galloway Viking hoard secrets 'unwrapped' by £1m research, and at Viking-age treasure hoard comes home to Galloway

The whole hoard is a remarkable insight into the later ninth or tenth centuries as well as being a remarkable survival. It is described, along with an account of its discovery and the possible circumstances of its burial, in a detailed Wikipedia article at Galloway Hoard