Extraordinary stash of Viking treasure is not what you'd expect

The Age

20-06-2025

'This portion of the hoard is like a time capsule, a family history told through their most treasured possessions,' he says.
One of the most beautiful objects to his mind is a gold pin depicting a bird. 'Before all the conservation work began in earnest, it was one of the few things that you could really see clearly,' Goldberg says. 'And yet we don't know what it is. Some people say flamingo, some a peacock, others that it mixes features of these known birds into some more mythical creature, like a phoenix. That's one of the great beauties of the Galloway Hoard – it invites you to imagine.'
Despite the term's common usage, there was no single people called 'the Vikings' in the same way that in later historical periods there was no single people called 'the Pirates″⁣.
'Going a-viking was an activity, like piracy, raiding and trading through seafaring,' Goldberg says, adding that those activities typify the time period, which is why it is referred to as the Viking Age.
The Viking Age refers to the period of European history when people from Scandinavia established major seafaring networks across Europe and beyond. During this time, Scotland was regularly connected with Scandinavia by boats sailing directly across the North Sea. From a British perspective, the Viking Age is generally thought to start with the first documented Viking raid at Lindisfarne in AD793, and to end with the battle of Hastings in AD1066.
The enduring perception of the period is one of violent plundering and pillaging, and that did happen, but those seafaring networks were also used for trade that brought the exchange of knowledge, material and ideas.
'To go 'on a viking', would mean roughly to go on an expedition, generally with the aim of returning wealthier than you were when you set off, and doing so by fair or foul means,' says Goldberg.
Since 2017, National Museums Scotland has conducted years of careful conservation, preservation, digital visualisation, meticulous recording and study, scientific analysis and national and international collaborative research on the hoard – all of which have contributed to the exhibition.
Who buried the items in the Galloway Hoard is unknown.
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'But for once, we do have names of the people involved in bringing the different parts of the hoard together and they all have Old English names, whether spelled out in Latin or runic script, and not Scandinavian names,' says Goldberg.
'All we know for sure is that it was buried over 1000 years ago, and it was still there in September 2014 when it was discovered, so we know that whoever did bury it did not return to collect it.'