It is a star object of the Galloway Hoardthe richest collection of Viking Age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland, buried in AD900 and exhumed in a field in Scotland. Now a lidded silver container has been identified as being of West Asian origin, transported halfway around the world more than 1,000 years ago.
When it emerged from the ground a decade ago, the vessel was still wrapped in its old textiles, the survival of which is extremely rare. Its surface could only be seen through X-ray scans. Since then, the textiles have been partially removed and preserved and the vessel has had laser cleaning to remove green corrosion over much of its silver surface. It has also undergone scientific analysis.
Details of a “remarkable” design that includes crowns, fire altars and creatures including leopards and tigers can be seen for the first time.
The imagery is linked to the iconography of Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the Sasanian empire, the last Persian empire before the early Muslim conquests from AD632. Scientific analysis shows that the silver from which it is made came from a mine in modern times Iran.
The treasure was discovered in 2014 by a metal detecting enthusiast on what is now Church of Scotland land at Balmaghie, Kirkcudbrightshire. Described as one of the century’s most important UK archaeological finds, it contained more than 5kg of silver, gold and other material, with objects ranging from a Christian pectoral cross to brooches.
It has been awarded to the National Museums Scotland (NMS), which will release its findings on the vessel this week ahead of its first display, on loan to the British Museum’s forthcoming Sideways exhibition.
Dr Martin Goldberg, the NMS’s Chief Curator of Early Medieval and Viking Collections, told the Observer: “Seeing those tigers for the first time is really a wonderful thing.
“Although the technology is so advanced, the 3D scans don’t give you the color. They don’t really give you the reaction that you get from this new emerging thing.”
Noting that they suspected its origin to be in central or western Asia, he added: “I had some trepidation that we wouldn’t get the answers we needed from the lead isotope analysis, but then I was just blown away when we got the perfect results .
“The central icon is what they call a fire altar. This was a motif used on Sasanian imperial coins. It is central to their religious practice. But it has a crown rising from the flames. It probably says that it is an object intended for or used by royalty.”
Sasanian emperors were often shown hunting leopards and tigers. The vessel is approximately 14 cm high. It contained many of the hoard’s unique idiosyncrasies, including a rock crystal jar. Goldberg believes it was an heirloom filled with “the memories and the heritage of an incredibly high-status and well-connected family”.
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He said: “It traveled thousands of miles to reach south-west Scotland. It is very difficult to imagine what a Christian living in the area could have made of this object, unless they knew how it got here, who brought it. They may have had their own stories about this object. We know that people were certainly making pilgrimages to the Holy Land at this point. Once you’ve covered that distance, you’re not really that far away from the origin of where this vessel came from.”
Dr Jane Kershaw, an expert on Viking Age silver from the University of Oxford, with whom the NMS worked on the project, said: “The vessel is an alloy of silver and relatively pure copper, which is typical of Sasanian silver, but not contemporary European silver.
“In addition, the isotopes of the lead in the silver metal and niello ore from Iran match. We can even go so far as to say that the niello comes from the famous mine of Nakhlak in central Iran. It is fantastic to have scientific confirmation for the distant origin of this remarkable object.”
The Galloway Hoard will eventually go on long-term display at the NMS in Edinburgh, with a significant portion also on long-term display at Kirkcudbright Galleries.
