Beforehand encrusted in a millennium’s value of grime, months of painstaking cleansing and conservation work has revealed an intricately embellished silver cross, permitting students to view this element for the primary time earlier than it’s placed on public show in a brand new exhibition, Galloway Hoard: Viking-age Treasure on the Nationwide Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh from February 19.

The silver cross is embellished in Late Anglo-Saxon model utilizing black niello and gold-leaf. In every of the 4 arms of the cross are the symbols of the 4 evangelists who wrote the Gospels of the New Testomony, Saint Matthew, Mark (Lion), Luke (Cow) and John (Eagle).

Dr Martin Goldberg, Principal Curator of Early Medieval and Viking Collections at Nationwide Museums Scotland mentioned: “Our strategy to creating additional understanding of the Galloway Hoard includes the good persistence, cautious examination and pain-staking care of conservation, mixed with wide-ranging analysis on the good number of supplies and objects on this excellent hoard.

“The cross is a splendidly visible illustration of the work we have now been doing to disclose new particulars in regards to the hoard. The conservation work lets us see this object clearly for the primary time in over a thousand years, nevertheless it additionally reveals a complete new set of questions.”

The cross is only one of many uncommon options within the Galloway Hoard. Late Anglo-Saxon Christian metalwork could be very uncommon in Viking-age silver hoards. In addition to silver bullion, the Galloway Hoard incorporates a big assortment of brooches, bracelets, glass beads, pendants, curios, heirlooms and extra gold than some other hoard surviving from Viking-age Britain and Eire, in addition to excellent preservation of natural supplies together with Scotland’s earliest examples of silk.

Dr Leslie Webster, former Keeper of Britain, Prehistory and Europe on the British Museum, added: “The pectoral cross, with its refined ornament of evangelist symbols and foliage, glittering gold and black inlays, and its delicately coiled chain, is an impressive instance of the Anglo-Saxon goldsmith’s artwork. It was made in Northumbria within the later ninth century for a high-ranking cleric, because the distinctive type of the cross suggests. Anglo-Saxon crosses of this sort are exceptionally uncommon, and just one different – a lot much less elaborate – is understood from the ninth century. The invention of this pendant cross, in such a outstanding context, is of main significance for the examine of early medieval goldsmith’s work, and for our understanding of Viking and Anglo-Saxon interactions on this turbulent interval.”

The Galloway Hoard was found in 2014, and it was acquired by Nationwide Museums Scotland in 2017. Since then, it has been present process in depth conservation and analysis on the Nationwide Museums Assortment Centre in Edinburgh.

The exhibition, which is supported by Baillie Gifford Funding Managers, will run on the Nationwide Museum of Scotland till Might 9 subsequent yr, earlier than touring to Kirkcudbright Galleries and Aberdeen Artwork Gallery.

Following the tour, analysis into the contents of the Galloway Hoard will proceed. A part of it would go on long-term show on the nationwide museum with a good portion of it additionally displayed long-term at Kirkcudbright Galleries.

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