FASCINATING details have been shared about the Galloway Hoard on the tenth anniversary of its discovery.
New research and conservation has revealed the lidded vessel which contained many of the unique Viking treasures is of West Asian origin.
On its discovery, the vessel was found wrapped in textiles which in themselves are an extremely rare survival from the burial of the Hoard, around AD900, in Galloway. Those textiles have been carefully studied and retained for further analysis with as much as possible preserved in situ on the vessel.
The careful conservation work and research has revealed the intricately decorated surface of the vessel for the first time since it was put in the ground over 1000 years ago. It features crowns, fire altars, leopards and tigers.
Experts say such imagery is unusual in western Europe and suggests an association with the iconography of Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the Sasanian Empire, the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries AD.
New scientific analysis also has confirmed that materials used to make the vessel originated in what is now central Iran.
Dr Martin Goldberg from National Museums Scotland said: “We had suspected from x-ray scanning the vessel that it may have originated somewhere in central or western Asia, but it’s only now that we’ve carefully conserved and analysed it that we can say this is definitively the case.
“It is incredible to imagine how the vessel made its journey halfway round the known world, from Iran to this distant corner of southwest Scotland.”
