| Talnotrie Hoard | |
|---|---|
| Created | c. 875–900AD |
| Period/culture | Early medieval |
| Discovered | 1912 Talnotrie, Scotland |
| Discovered by | Mrs Gordon |
| Present location | National Museums Scotland |
| Coordinates | 55°00′56″N04°22′00″W / 55.01556°N 4.36667°W Coordinates: 55°00′56″N04°22′00″W / 55.01556°N 4.36667°W |
The Talnotrie Hoard is a 9th-century mixed hoard of jewellery, coinage, metal-working objects and raw materials found in Talnotrie, Scotland, in 1912. Initially assumed to have belonged to a Northumbrian metal-worker, more recent interpretations associate its deposition with the activities of the Viking Great Army.
The hoard was discovered at Talnotrie in Kirkcudbrightshire, when a woman called Mrs Gordon was putting peat on the fire in her home and noticed some silver drop out from the peat. [1] Her husband had cut the peat from the hillside near their home and later reported that the objects were in peat layers close to the "glacial clay below the peat". [1] The hoard was published by Sir Herbert Maxwell in 1913. [1]
The hoard consists of a mixed assemblage of coins, jewellery, metal-working objects and raw materials. [2] Jewellery items in the hoard include two silver disc-headed pins, a separate pin-head, a niello strap-end and a gold finger-ring. [2] Objects associated with metal-working include a lead weight inset with a piece of circular copper-alloy interlace, two oval silver wire loops, and a fragment of or unfinished cross. [1] Raw materials include a piece of jet, a piece of unfinished agate, a piece of green glass and a substance similar to beeswax. [1] There are also three clay spindle whorls. [1] Coins associated with the hoard include six stycas, four pennies of Burgred of Mercia, one fragment of a Carolingian denier and two fragments of Islamic dirhams. [3]
The hoard is in the collection of National Museums Scotland. [4] In 2021 it was displayed as part of an exhibition on the Galloway Hoard. [4]
Whilst the identity of the hoard's depositor/s is unknown, James Graham-Campbell suggested that it belonged to a Northumbrian metal-worker. [5] However, it has been suggested that the hoard is more likely to be connected to Scandinavian presence and movement in the British Isles, [6] and could even be connected to the Viking Great Army since objects in the assemblage have similarities to the assemblages of sites like the Viking winter camp at Torksey in Lincolnshire. [7] It has even been suggested that the hoard could be connected to Viking leaders, such as Halfdan Ragnarsson or Ivar the Boneless. [8] Halfdan made incursions into Strathclyde and Pictish areas c.874/5. [7] Ivar, and his kinsman Olaf, captured Dumbarton Rock and campaigned in Strathclyde c.870/1. [8] It has also been cited as "the earliest coin-dated hoard evidence for bullion-use in Scotland". [9]
The hoard's date of concealment has been estimated based on the coins in the assemblage. The proposed dates vary from c.875 to c.900. [7] [10] The decorative motifs on the pins have been interpreted as part of a "distinctly Northumbrian development of the Trewhiddle style". [11]
Kirkcudbrightshire, or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Kirkcudbrightshire was an administrative county used for local government. Since 1975, the area has formed part of Dumfries and Galloway for local government purposes. Kirkcudbrightshire continues to be used as a registration county for land registration. A lower-tier district called Stewartry covered the majority of the historic county from 1975 to 1996. The area of Stewartry district is still used as a lieutenancy area. Dumfries and Galloway Council also has a Stewartry area committee.
The Mildenhall Treasure is a large hoard of 34 masterpieces of Roman silver tableware from the fourth century AD, and by far the most valuable Roman objects artistically and by weight of bullion in Britain. It was found at West Row, near Mildenhall, Suffolk, in 1942. It consists of over thirty items and includes the Great Dish which weighs over 8 kg (18 lb).
Niello is a black mixture, usually of sulphur, copper, silver, and lead, used as an inlay on engraved or etched metal, especially silver. It is added as a powder or paste, then fired until it melts or at least softens, and flows or is pushed into the engraved lines in the metal. It hardens and blackens when cool, and the niello on the flat surface is polished off to show the filled lines in black, contrasting with the polished metal around it. It may also be used with other metalworking techniques to cover larger areas, as seen in the sky in the diptych illustrated here. The metal where niello is to be placed is often roughened to provide a key. In many cases, especially in objects that have been buried underground, where the niello is now lost, the roughened surface indicates that it was once there.
The Hoxne Hoard is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by Eric Lawes, a metal detectorist in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England in 1992. The hoard consists of 14,865 Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins and approximately 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewellery. The objects are now in the British Museum in London, where the most important pieces and a selection of the rest are on permanent display. In 1993, the Treasure Valuation Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million.
Hacksilver consists of fragments of cut and bent silver items that were used as bullion or as currency by weight in antiquity.
The Celtic brooch, more properly called the penannular brooch, and its closely related type, the pseudo-penannular brooch, are types of brooch clothes fasteners, often rather large; penannular means formed as an incomplete ring. They are especially associated with the beginning of the Early Medieval period in Ireland and Britain, although they are found in other times and places—for example, forming part of traditional female dress in areas in modern North Africa.
The Penrith Hoard is a dispersed hoard of 10th century silver penannular brooches found at Flusco Pike, Newbiggin Moor, near Penrith in Cumbria, and now in the British Museum in London. The largest "thistle brooch" was discovered in 1785 and another in 1830, with the bulk of items being recovered in two groups close to each other by archaeologists in 1989. Whether all the finds made close to each other were originally deposited at the same time remains uncertain, but it is thought likely that at least the brooches were. The brooches are thought to have been deposited in about 930.
The Silverdale Hoard is a collection of over 200 pieces of silver jewellery and coins discovered near Silverdale, Lancashire, England, in September 2011. The items were deposited together in and under a lead container buried about 16 inches (41 cm) underground which was found in a field by a metal detectorist. It is believed to date to around AD 900, a time of intense conflict between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish settlers of northern England. The hoard is one of the largest Viking hoards ever discovered in the UK. It has been purchased by Lancashire Museums Service and has been displayed at Lancaster City Museum and the Museum of Lancashire in Preston. It is particularly significant for its inclusion of a coin stamped with the name of a previously unknown Viking ruler.
Trewhiddle style is a distinctive style in Anglo-Saxon art that takes its name from the Trewhiddle Hoard, discovered in Trewhiddle, Cornwall in 1770. Trewhiddle ornamentation includes the use of silver, niello inlay, and zoomorphic, plant and geometric designs, often interlaced and intricately carved into small panels. Famous examples include the Pentney Hoard, the Abingdon sword, the Fuller brooch, and the Strickland brooch.
The archaeological sites Randlev and Hesselbjerg refer to two closely related excavations done throughout the 20th century near the village of Randlev in the Odder Municipality of Denmark, three kilometers southeast of the town of Odder. Randlev is known primarily for its Romanesque church constructed sometime around 1100 A.D. Hesselbjerg refers to the large Viking-Age cemetery discovered on the Hesselbjerg family farm and the site Randlev refers to the nearby settlement from the same period. Although both Randlev and Hesselbjerg were contemporaneous and encompass a similar area, Hesselbjerg refers more specifically to the 104 graves discovered prior to the later excavation at the site Randlev, which pertains to the Viking Age settlement. The settlement consisted of a farm complex that was likely active during the ninth and tenth centuries; finds from the site such as silver hoards and elaborate jewelry indicate that the farm was likely prosperous, a conjecture which is supported by the extremely fertile land surrounding the area. Artifacts were found in the vicinity of the Hesselbjerg and Randlev sites as early as 1932 when a local farmer discovered a silver hoard, but serious excavations were not conducted until 1963. These excavations ended in 1970; however, Moesgård Museum returned to the site in 1997 and continued analysis until 2010.
The Galloway Hoard, currently held in the National Museum of Scotland, is a hoard of more than 100 gold, silver, glass, crystal, stone, and earthen objects from the Viking Age discovered in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland in September 2014. Found on Church of Scotland land, the hoard has been described by experts as "one of the most significant Viking hoards ever found in Scotland". With years of extensive study and research, scholars are still not certain who buried the hoard, why they did so and whether they were Vikings or Anglo-Saxons. During the Viking Age, Galloway found itself squeezed between two Viking kingdoms and essentially cut off from other Anglo-Saxons in Britain - "Galloway is where these different cultures were meeting. It’s not just Scandinavians, but people from Britain and Ireland as well."
The Spillings Hoard is the world's largest Viking silver treasure, found on Friday 16 July 1999 in a field at the Spilling farm northwest of Slite, on northern Gotland, Sweden. The silver hoard consisted of two parts with a total weight of 67 kg (148 lb) before conservation and consisted of, among other things, 14,295 coins most of which were Islamic from other countries. A third deposition containing over 20 kg (44 lb) of bronze scrap-metal was also found. The three caches had been hidden under the floorboards of a Viking outhouse sometime during the 9th century.
Airdeconut was a Norse King of Northumbria. Numismatic evidence suggests he was a Christian and he probably ruled in Northern England around the year 900.
The styca was a small coin minted in pre-Viking Northumbria, originally in base silver and subsequently in a copper alloy. Production began in the 790s and continued until the 850s, though the coin remained in circulation until the Viking conquest of Northumbria in 867.
The Pentney Hoard is an Anglo-Saxon jewellery hoard, discovered by a gravedigger in a Pentney, Norfolk churchyard in 1978. The treasure consists of six silver openwork disc brooches, five made entirely of silver and one composed of silver and copper alloy. The brooches are decorated in the 9th century Trewhiddle style. The hoard is now in the British Museum.
The Beeston Tor Hoard is an Anglo-Saxon jewellery and coin hoard discovered in 1924 at Beeston Tor in Staffordshire. The hoard consists of forty-nine coins, two silver brooches with Trewhiddle style decoration, three finger rings, and miscellaneous fragments. The coins date the burial of the hoard to approximately 875 AD.
The Traprain Law treasure is a hoard of late Roman hacksilver, found on the hillfort of Traprain Law during excavations in 1919. It is the largest hoard of Roman hacksilver currently known, weighing just over 23 kg. It consists mostly of Roman silver vessels, a few of which are complete but most of which had been cut into fragments or crushed. There are a few items of personal equipment and coins. The hoard was probably buried in the early fifth century AD. Early interpretations saw it as loot; more recent views prefer to see it as diplomatic gifts or payment for military service. It is currently on display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The Adabrock Hoard is a collection of Late Bronze Age artefacts deposited at Adabroc, Isle of Lewis, Scotland around 1000-800 BC. The artefacts comprise two bronze socketed axeheads, a spearhead, a gouge, a hammer, three razors, as well as fragments of decorated bronze vessel, two whetstones and beads of glass, amber and gold. The hoard was discovered in peat, at a depth of 9-10 feet, by Donald Murray in May 1910. The hoard was acquired shortly after discovery by the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland and is accessioned as X.DQ 211-227.
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