Hands on History: Rare Viking Treasure
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- Опубликовано: 21 ноя 2024
- A unique discovery, a glittering hoard of beautifully crafted objects in silver, gold and crystal, buried in the ground and forgotten 1100 years ago.
The Galloway Hoard opens an extraordinary window into the Viking Age, a time of upheaval in South-West Scotland where it was discovered, but also a time of long-distance trade and pilgrimage, revealed by its most precious objects.
Medieval historian Helen Carr joins the experts from National Museums Scotland to explore and understand this incredible group of objects. One in particular has never been seen in public before, a fascinating lidded silver vessel that is believed to have come all the way from what is now Iran to Galloway. Helen witnesses it being meticulously conserved for its first display.
To find out more you can visit the excellent National Museums Scotland website where there is a wealth of information about the Galloway Hoard and where it can be seen. www.nms.ac.uk/...
The lidded silver vessel is on special display at the British Museum's Silk Roads exhibition.
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#vikings #treasure #archaeology
This is one of the most fascinating ancient jewelry collections I've seen.
Wonderfully presented with structure and subtlety, without any annoying music or artiface.
Thank you so much🙏
I liked the Presenter, She was Professional. She asked a question, then listened to the answer. She didnt talk over the Person. Refreshing.😊
Helen Carr is an excellent historian and great writer. I’m glad she did this story for HH. This find is incredible!
Is Helen Carr a relative of Alan Carr?
She can go hands on with me anytime
She's also a total babe.
I find it strange that a number of people are complaining about the music. I personally found the objects & the information provided about them so interesting that I never even noticed the music. It was only on reading these comments that it registered and even then only on the second viewing and still didn't find it annoying or somehow trying to be mysterious. Odd
Thats because the background music is designed to lead your emotions ..its an old trick but they overdid it.
@caledonianson927 I'm sorry but no. It neither led me or tricked me. I was just more interested in what was being discussed. Stop looking for conspiracies that simply don't exist
When people have any degree of hearing loss or tinnitus (hissing, squeaking or ringing in the ears) - this kind of incidental music can sound like random frequencies with on-off volume. So it can be more than just distracting, it can interfere with speech comprehension.
Some people like music while they eat, I hate it myself.
I totally agree. The content was fascinating. A look into the past that we never knew about. Forgot about the nit picker. Non existent!
Amazing,reading the comments after watching this, I never heard the music, I was listening to every word and studying the detail of each object to notice the music. Great find
So, the music did its job
I'd really love to see more videos like this on the channel.
Helen Carr is brilliant, elegant, and has a perfect voice for narration of a documentary like this. Fantastic video!
I agree, even if she doesn't know how to pronounce "cache."
“Cache” is pronounced differently in different countries. No points off for her pronunciation from me. 😂
Don’t forget Beautiful.
What a great presentation of an amazing discovery. I haven’t seen Helen Carr previously. What a pleasant speaking voice, and a good interviewer. Thank you.
This was a treat... wonderful conversations, slow speed, good listening, beautiful objects and good close ups ❤
What an interesting video. From the complex conservation of the fabric-wrapped vessel, to imagining the circumstances of the person, or people, who buried this treasure -and why it was never retrieved.
It was never retrieved because the person or persons who buried it probably were killed by the intruders? . Vikings.
Fascinating, beautiful work. Never heard this story. So glad it was brought forth. Someone wanted to protect their family or community wealth and heritage. Wow.😍
wow Helen Carr is quite a treasure herself. So bloody beautiful and a soothing voice. The music was fine. i hardly noticed it. fascinating stuff
Helen Carr narrated it beautifully. As to the music, in general, I prefer commentaries without music, but this music was 'sensitively low volume and therefore not intrusive.
Wow... That was amazing! I'm sitting here in Denmark watching this and I am in awe of how many details this little half-hour program has. I just want to watch the whole thing once again - - and dream of that journey to Britain (where I will magically be able to view everything in a week...)
Anyway - thank you!
Amazing! I went to the exhibition in Kirkcudbright a few years ago and can’t wait to see it again in Edinburgh
The gold inlay on silver is astonishingly fine work, as is the ornamentation on all of the pieces. All of the items are fascinating and the runic characters are intriguing. I hope eventually they can find out their meaning.
Breathtakingly beautiful. I am always struck by the workmanship in objects like this. The ability to create such fine and tiny detail without modern magnification amazes me ❤🔥
It's quite likely that rather than being a "Viking" hoard, the hoard actually belonged to a local Anglo-Saxon - the only truly "Viking" element of the hoard is the silver bullion, which is typically of Irish Viking make (multiple silver bars perfectly conform to the standardised units of measurement in Viking Dublin) but even they are inscribed with multiple Anglo-Saxon names, written in Anglo-Saxon runes - no Viking would be putting Anglo-Saxon names on their silver. Also, many of the items found in the hoard, including the seven brooches, two hinged silver straps and the cross, are in the Trewhiddle style, which was a style exclusive to the Anglo-Saxons, and popular throughout England and the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world at the time, including Galloway. As pointed out in the video, the rock crystal jar had another Anglo-Saxon name inscribed on it, so we can check that off as Anglo-Saxon too - on the other hand, none of the non-bullion items in the hoard would indicate a Viking material culture, such as the Borre style, popular around the time the hoard was buried.
The name Galloway comes from the Gaelic phrase i nGall Gaidhealaib, "of the Foreign Gaels", and clearly refers to the Gaelic-speaking Vikings from the Irish sea settling this part of Scotland. But Irish sources from the period immediately prior to when the Galloway hoard was deposited refer to the Galloway coast as "The Saxon coast", and the region had been ruled by the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria for centuries, where there is strong evidence of Anglo-Saxon presence such as the Ruthwell Cross, also in Galloway, a Christian high cross inscribed with Anglo-Saxon runes, quoting the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood.
To quote the book "The Galloway Hoard: Viking-age Treasure", published by National Museums Scotland, "the Galloway Hoard seems to capture that moment in history where cultural, political and linguistic change was imminent." Perhaps the silver bullion was acquired through trade by a wealthy local Anglo-Saxon to facilitate trade in the Irish sea, so dominated by Vikings at this time, and deposited in the ground to protect it from those same Vikings, who had decided to acquire the land through violent conquest? Speculative, of course, but makes the most sense in my opinion, considering the evidence!
This is precisely what I thought as well. This isn’t a Viking hoard at all. I too lean strongly towards it being Anglo-Saxon.
In addition the gravel layer separating the two layers would indicate multiple deposits in this hoard at different times. Possibly a family stash used over many years? A family that may have come to a bad end and the hoard consequently forgotten about?
As mentioned there was four different groups vying for control of this area at that time. That they made a hoard is completely understandable, as is the possibility that they may have come to a less than fortunate end.
This was, after all, an extremely violent and nearly lawless era.
Fascinating. It's so good to get other experts giving their opinion and citing their own sources.thankyou.
Doesn't mean vikings didn't take it from an Anglo Saxon
@@lorig4871 That's true, but there isn't really any evidence that the hoard belonged to a Viking. For example, the Vikings utilised a bullion economy, where the only thing that mattered in the value of an item was its weight in silver or gold. If it belonged to a Viking, we'd expect a bunch of "hacksilver", the broken up pieces of silver objects that basically served as Viking loose change, continually broken down and its weight tested to get an exact amount in a transaction. On the other hand, there is lots of evidence that it belonged to an Anglo-Saxon, and we instead see silver bullion, with English names inscribed on them, seperate from beautifully crafted silver and gold items, many of which also have Anglo-Saxon names on them or are in an explicitly Anglo-Saxon style.
We can never know who deposited the hoard in the ground, but we can make a best guess, and that in this case is that of Anglo-Saxons - if anything, the Viking Age is exactly the period we'd expect to see Anglo-Saxons depositing their valueables in hoards.
You are all speculating from scant historical records and tropes, Galloway and it’s history has some of the oldest history because of the Solway tides. It
Oral history from the area has a battlefield further up the valley of Ken between locals and vikings, the area is so special historically but does not fit into any normal book of Records. It is therefore lumped into many historical groups as subservient.
My theory of the earth balls with gold in is: The filings of the gold worker. It is easy to mop up filings with damp mud.
For some reason, I read fillings - as in dental work.
This is exactly what I thought.
Majes sense, since the hoard has the gold proofing stone. Perhaps she/he was a jewelry maker....or a gift from the parents child...
I was about to make the same point. With the touch stone, I think it's more than a fair assumption to say that the owner was involved in jewelry making.
What better way to tidy/keep tiny flecks of gold than with a clay like ball.
I'd like to imagine that the rock crystal container contained acid for testing gold--- that's a bit of a stretch though! Still, better than the age old cliche then it's 'for religious purposes'.
Lived in sw Scotland all my life i remember this hoard being found. I once found carvings on rocks in a very remote hill in Galloway and wondering how old they were. Never even told anyone about them
Yeah maybe making a hord. U never kno buy a metal detector go back
That Sasanian pot was already 200 years old (likely) when it arrived in the Levant. What we landlubbers often consider a barrier - the sea - was the means of travel for ancient peoples. Too much good stuff found in Galloway, Orkney, and elsewhere to ignore that concept. Well played.
Metal detecting is such an amazing hobby.
An incredible find!
Amazing viking hoard. Their craftmanship is incredible. Thank you from Galloway.
Armuver: the recognition of these skills nicely fills out the sketchy idea I had of marauding Viking raiders!
Thank you for creating & sharing the most fascinating & informative video that continues to demonstrate the incredible ingenuity, skill, creativity, knowledge, & pursuits going back over 1100 years!! The natural curiosity of mankind never ceases to amaze us!!
This is a lovely video, really well made and interesting. I was lucky enough to see the Galloway Hoard a few years ago when it was on display in Kircudbright. The detail in the decoration on the objects is very beautiful and the story behind it, fascinating. I have the book, but it is interesting to find out more about the restoration process and history through this video.
Amazing artefacts! Really interesting, this.
Nice one Helen and team! 🌟👍
Amazing!
Thank You For Sharing This Incredible Treasure!
Just wonderful ❤
Thankyou so much. A fascinating, scholarly documentary.
What a wonderful video!
Super presentation
Thank you so much Helen. Amazing finds indeed! Regards, John.
Wonderful discovery. Thank you for sharing.
This is amazing! I’m seeing a Viking, having stolen many of these items from people of the church, and other people, and had to bury it quickly when a battle was in motion.
I cannot see a single person being able to maintain such an incredibly valuable hoard alone at that time. I'm thinking a gang of some descript. The church wasn't shy about taking valuables to finance its goal.
Items are collected from the dead after the battles and buried as sacred. In honour and respect. Often in special locations.
@@merqury5it was ever thus and still is. The trappings and sumptuous jewels of religious organisations can be seen every day. (While STILL people go hungry, malnourished). It’s certainly an amazing find…….. I wonder who actually discovered all this beneath their magic detectors?
Fascinating, I hope they will analyse the soil in the mud balls to determine their origins.
a great documentary - wish they discussed the textiles more.
I seen the hord when it went on display in the national museum of Scotland and it was truly an amazing hord
What an absolutely fabulous programme for a rainy Friday morning. Great detailed descriptions, explanations and closeups. Well paced commentary. Camera work and lighting 10/10. Music spot on. Got to get to the Silk Roads exhibition to see the silver pot ! Was there any mention of Runic names on the completed silver bangles similar to the unfinished flat ones?
Why do I find the idea of no one coming back for this so sad? I am building up this mental picture of cool Viking hoard!! treasure!!! Then those beat up beads made me immediately feel so sad. They were precious beyond gold and silver 😢😅
I wonder if the dirt balls with gold was a way of keeping the gold dust and tiny pieces together until reclaimed at a later time.
I thought the same.
The stone for testing the quality of gold should have given them a clue it has to be a goldsmiths/ silversmiths stock as you said the dirt balls would be a way of keeping the smallest parts of gold for later
@@gkidd1963 In that era, many people would have carried a touchstone. Especially those going a-viking - because they want to split the loot. People commonly carried their own little bits of weighing equipment too.
Or how does one collect the valuable detritus from a jewellers work bench ?
@@eh1702 Yet, the collection together pretty clearly suggests a craftsman’s most valuable inventory.
Wonderful documentary 👏
Beautiful items and beautifully explained, thank you very much!
These items are almost unbelievable. Which I could see them in person.
This is phenomenal
I personally love the music and and its inspiring and fits the narrative!!
Thank you for such an awesome piece of history. So much for the "Dark" ages. With stuff travelling across the silk road, through the Mediterranean, up north over the great rivers to Novgorod and the rest, to end up in Scotland and by the looks of it still an active hub of activity, those were great times . And didn't the Anglo Saxons do magic with their gold and silver work. John Warner, NSW. Australia
Fabulous, thank you.
Thank you. Very interesting.
4:04 the chain, is exactly how lever and pedal harp strings are made today. This is fascinating.
Violin strings, too...except no cow guts...😅
An excellent documentary.
That was great! I had the pleasure of seeing the Galloway Hoard first hand a couple of years ago when it was on display at Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, as I was living in Galloway at the time. I thought the silver vessel was with it then, but obviously it wasn't, just the rest of the artifacts. It's truly tantalising to speculate where it all came from. It just makes me think of Lindisfarne. In fact I seem to recall from my visit to the Whithorn Experience, that there was in fact a bishopric established, By Northumbria, at Whithorn at one point, then it mysteriously vanished. And I know that Galloway itself was part of Northumbria, and then Galloway was 'conquered' by Vikings. So maybe this could be the reason why the bishopric failed. The Galloway Hoard is what is left of it after it was plundered and destroyed by the Vikings, setting up their new petty kingdom (which didn't last long). Hmmmmmm.........(??????).
Fascinating, thank you.
Amazing find. Truly fascinating.
Incredible history, thank you for making this video , to all the amazing talents of those who analysed and preserved this wonderful hoard and let’s not forget the detectorists who followed the code of reporting their finds so that history was preserved for future generations to contemplate the world that was🙋🏻♂️🙏
WOW!! Outstanding
A Goldsmith Silversmith working collection. Some elements collected during trade or war treasures. Hidden during war time. And the balls were a way to collect or clean up remnants from metal working as to not waste.
I would love to see a demonstration how these objects could have been made. So intricate and time consuming.
Some of these jewelry making skills cannot be duplicated by modern methods. What you need is someone of great artistic soul, who has been apprenticed to a master precious metal worker for years, and has gone on to becoming a master themselves. This would have taken decades of work at the smelter and small anvil. The creators of these vessels and jewelry would have been acknowledged wizards of their craft.
Fascinating. And so clearly described.
Makes me emotional, desperate to go back in time. So much not known about this world
Wonderful artifacts
Additional theory on the balls: Gilders like to use a gum to collect the left gold so it can be recycled. Given the shist that was found maybe this was a horde of a jewelry smith and those balls were from some gilding they had done. Some of those pieces have inlaid gold and gold decoration/pint/gild.
I thought so too, that i would have used that balls fo vollect goldsust while working. I hypothize that that stash might have belonged to a gold/silver smith because of the unfinished and finished bangels as well as the stone to check gold
Was this the inspiration for the show Detectorists? I see it was found a year before the show started. Great show, for anyone who is interested in hoards and history.
And would have remained unknown had it not been for someone with a metal detector as with so many museum metallic artefacts. So well done them.
I've seen it in person and it's so amazing 😊
Fascinating stuff
Astonishing!
Can you imagine finding all of that?!
She is beautiful, lovely, articulate.
More of this kind of content!
Silk means trade connections to China.
The old stone to test gold with could not only mean a tradesperson but also a goldsmith. The different stages of silver (ingot, worn used silver bracelets/rings, and half-prepared silver rings) could also imply a silversmith.
Many peoples used to keep their wealth on their bodies in the shape of jewellery which could be traded in in times of hardship as well as at times of conflict, when they had to flee.
It looks as if three different men from one family hid their wealth in one pit in the hope of retrieving it after the conflict has worn out, not because they intended to flee but because they intended to stay.
These men must have had strong ties to the area. Unfortunately, neither of the men seemed to have survived the conflict.
Amazing
Love Viking stuff.
Anglo Saxon
The arm rings were Viking as not used by Christian AS in this period. Cheers
@@antonyreyn They were used as silver bullion, which was currency in the Viking-dominated Irish Sea at the time, not only as arm rings, and they have multiple Anglo-Saxon names inscribed on them, as the video stated. This is without mentioning the Trewhiddle style cross, brooches, and silver hinged rods, a style unique to the Anglo-Saxons, and the rock crystal jar, inscribed with another Anglo-Saxon name. The hoard shows every sign of having belonged to Anglo-Saxons
@@barnsleyman32 cool info but who the hoard belonged to is unknowable, all i was saying is the arm rings are acknowledged as viking which they are
Very interesting! Great work and shoes how travel in the medieval times
I would say that the jar or bottle was commissioned by a Bishop and used to carry holy water for special occasions.
I cant see if anyone has suggested this, but could the gold ring and gold bird be a 2 piece shawl/ scarf clasp?
Makes sense😊
Awesome!
Fascinating
I like the pilgrims souvenir idea for the clay balls but could it be more likely that they were actually a simple way to pick up lemel in a gold-working environment to recycle the gold grains by washing and then smelting the lemel?
That makes sense, but it could be both. Perhaps Holy Land gilters (is that a word, let’s say goldsmiths) selling souvenirs.
Wonderful find and presentation! Could do without the sound effects though.
Absolutely amazing, fascinating and brings new light to the viking age Britain
I do wire wrapping with Silver and Copper wire. I find the "chain" of the Cross interesting. How did they make such a uniform gauge wire, and what did they coil it around so that the length of the coil is uniform in diameter? It doesn't seem that the cattle gut would be firm enough to keep the wire in place. I wrap my wire around a long metal rod, then take it off and string cording through it. Is this how they made it do you suppose?
The wire was probably drawn through a draw-plate. An early medieval draw-plate was recovered from the excavations at Whithorn in Galloway. As you do, the gut cording will have been put in after the 'chain' was finished. It is made up of several coils, wound into each other at the ends.
where else in the world could you go around with a metal detector and find such a trove? incredible
Very interesting
Phenomenal
What does the rune inscription mean on the bird pin?
These are Frysian runes that have also been found at Hogebeintum (Friesland/Netherlands). It is already known from Roman scripts that the Norwegians and Swedes went on raids with the Frisians in the winter period, the Viking ships pierced quite deeply through the keel the Friezes. However, they had flat bottom ships that allowed them to travel further up the rivers. There is a description of Roman texts that say that the Viking ships and the Frisian platbodums were waiting at high water at Engwerdas (now Engwierum), which is now all reclaimed land. The Romans dared to invade Frysland a few times but never again because they considered them too barbaric. One of the texts tells that after an attack the surviving Roman soldiers were burned alive on the beach
Amazing find ! My bet from my fertile mind is that it was the treasure of a bandit or band of outlaws. All the collected armbands with some old English runic engravings - as marked to be divided up amongst band members perhaps and especially the four decorated arm rings tied together like it was one claimants division. In particular the religious collection I imagine was gained from an unfortunate and unprotected high status bishop or cardinal whilst travelling. Hidden and never recovered, as my imagination tells me the owner picked the wrong target one day or perhaps the group suffered an internal power struggle, leading to theft, murder and the knowledge of the location was lost through a late night knife in the heart. Fantastic video from my ancestral homelands. What a story.
In dangerous times, people from many countries have buried their valuables. It seems like this is the cache of a jeweler or metal artist. The flat armbands, not quite finished, a collection of heirlooms, the balls of clay for picking up gold dust or shavings from the workbench. Carefully wrapped items means the person had time to pack the items for their stay in the earth. But they probably counted on being able to retrieve their belongings, and then it turned out they could not return. The knowledge was lost of where these objects were cached.
This was fascinating. But did I miss something? How did archiologists find the stash in the first place? How did they know to look exactly in that spot? Were they already searching a different dig and come across it, or what,?
My first thought about the balls of dirt, once I knew about the gold-was that the dirt provided a means of collecting & saving the small amounts of gold left on the smiths workspace, the fact that there’s some holy shit too, tells me that in a world void of tiny jars, trapping things in a bigger ball of dirt may have been a common strategy
The bird pin looks as thought there was some Egyptian influence.
As well as the bull and the halo, pagan things eventually absorbed by Christendom to appease pagans when they were *converted christians*
I wonder how big the think tank was, or the time taken, to come up with that outstanding naming. The Galloway Hoard. Is that the best they could come up with?
The naming was deliberately vague in order to not give away the precise location of the hoard, due to the threat of illegal detecting on the site.
It would be better to leave the border area black when displaying vertical images. Blurring the background is a bit distracting.
10:42 last time when I heard of a big horad hidden in the ground (in Sweden at the island of Øland) the archaeologists had a teory that the wiking how had maded the horad in the ground, had done so to keep his things safe. Like a treasure in the ground because there was no banks or safes at that point.
Hyguald's pendant is both spectacular and immensely intriguing! The link with Vatican treasures and the age of ~200 - 400 CE really tickles my synapses - long before Augustine of Canterbury arrived - King Lucius, Philip the Apostle, or Joseph of Arimathea? All of which are now seen as wishful thinking by later Christians. So who? Or was it brought over by Augustine or a later ambassador? The former seems more likely ...
The carved rock crystal decorated in gold was described as a jar, what would have been kept inside?
Some sort of relic containing soil or water from a holy place?
Maybe perfume water?
I would guess anointing oil, since it belonged to a bishop.
Single Malt Scotch
Smart they put it in upside down, so no water could get in.
I can see that bookcase getting used for firewood after all Scott.
The Sasanian vessel recalls the journey made, via rome, to the shrine of Thomas in India during the time of Alfred.
For a second there the thumbnail had me thinking, what's George been hiding ??