Amateur Metal Detectorists in Scotland Have Unearthed a Stash of 8,400 Medieval Coins
New Abbey and Sweetheart Abbey, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Some used pandemic downtime to learn how to crochet or brew a batch of kombucha. In Scotland, many escaped the boredom of lockdown restrictions by taking up metal detecting—so much so the country’s Treasure Trove Unit is struggling to keep up.
Most recently, the government organization responsible for investigating, handling, and archiving the discoveries of amateur detectorists announced the Dunscore Hoard, one of the biggest discoveries in Scottish history.
Last summer, 8,400 medieval silver coins were found in a field close to Dumfries, a southwestern town 25 miles from the Anglo-Scottish border.
Named after the nearby Dumfriesshire village, the Dunscore Hoard is the largest uncovered in Scotland since the 19th century and is primarily comprised of Edward I and II pennies dating from the 13th to 14th century—a period of frequent war between England and Scotland that cast forth characters such as William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.
“The hoard is still being catalogued,” Ken McNab, Senior Communications Officer at Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, told Artnet News. “It’s an ongoing process and we don’t have a timetable at this point.”
This process involves identifying, photographing, measuring, and weighing each coin before museum allocations are decided.
The hoard contains a mix of English, Irish, Scottish, and mainland European coins. Although a value is yet to be determined, the size, breadth, and rareness of the hoard means it is likely worth several hundred thousand dollars.
In May 2020, the Treasure Trove Unit concluded a multiyear survey of Scotland’s hobbyist metal detecting scene and estimated the number of active hobbyists at 520.
Their number seems to have ballooned since the beginning of the pandemic, with the Treasure Trove Unit reporting 12,263 artefacts found so far in 2022, compared to around 1,500 in 2019.
“The team has had to take on more staff to help process items found post-Covid,” McNab said.
Fortunately, the survey showed the hobbyists have a high awareness of the country’s heritage legislation and are keen to work more closely with the heritage sector in the coming years. Expect more finds like the Dunscore Hoard.
Rare medieval script discovered on stone carved by Scotland’s ‘Painted People’
This image shows a close-up of an ogham alphabet inscription on a Pictish cross slab.
Archaeologists and volunteers have discovered a stone bearing a mysterious inscription and carved birds that the Picts of Scotland crafted more than a millennium ago. The cross slab, found in a small cemetery last month, dates to between A.D. 500 and 700, and sheds new light on the historic interaction between heritage and faith in the northern U.K.
The Picts, or “Painted People,” were so-named by Roman historians because of their supposed war paint and tattoos (“picti,” is the Latin word for “paint”). They lived in northern and eastern Scotland in the early medieval period. Likely descended from Celtic tribes, the Picts are famous for successfully resisting Roman conquest. While the Romans painted the Picts as barbarous and backward, they were largely subsistence farmers, growing grain and herding domesticated animals.
After the Roman Empire withdrew from the British Isles in the fifth century A.D., Pictish society grew to form a permanent but unstable monarchy intent on protecting its territorial boundaries. Early missionaries from Ireland converted many kings of Pictland to Christianity in the mid-sixth century A.D. Then, at the Battle of Dun Nechtain in A.D. 685, the Picts pushed the Britons out of Scotland and created a mini-empire that would last until around A.D. 900 and the arrival of the Vikings.
But the newly uncovered cross slab, found in the Old Kilmadock cemetery near Doune, Scotland, a region that was historically a buffer zone between the Picts and the Romans, and later the Britons, complicates that tidy history. “The cross slab is the first one in this region, and may mean that the residents started to think of themselves as Picts,” Stirling Council archaeologist Murray Cook, who led the recent excavation, told Live Science in an email.
Carved stones from early medieval Scotland are relatively common, but the newly discovered one from the Old Kilmadock cemetery, which has yet to be fully excavated, has three intriguing features: a rounded top, animal figural decorations and an inscription written in a medieval alphabet called ogham.
At 47 inches (119 centimeters) high and 32 inches (82 cm) wide, the Old Kilmadock stone is similar in size and shape to a large grave marker. Experts, however, think that they may have served multiple functions.
Kelly Kilpatrick, a historian and Celticist at the University of Glasgow, told Live Science in an email that cross slabs “could be grave markers, and used to communicate Christian messages to a lay audience through imagery. Sometimes you find iconography from native Pictish religion intermixed with Christian iconography on these types of monuments.” But its rounded top and circular, knotted cross make the Old Kilmadock stone a rare type of Pictish cross slab.
“The tips of the scrolls end with bird heads; they might be pelicans, as there is a tradition of the pelican biting its own flesh to feed to its young, echoing Christ and the Last Supper, which becomes the Eucharist,” Cook explained. Below that, there is a Pictish style carved four-legged animal that looks like a bull. “The bull might be a symbol of a family, a region, or a god,” Cook said.
A look at the Ogham alphabet, which was formed by creating parallel strokes and slashes along a central line.
An ogham inscription running around the side of the stone has astounded researchers. Ogham was used to write an early version of the Irish language, and it was formed by making parallel strokes and slashes along a central line. About 400 of these inscriptions have survived to the present day, mostly in Ireland, but the one from Old Kilmadock is the first to be found in central Scotland.
Kelly Kilpatrick, who will be translating the inscription, said that “it is not possible to read the ogham inscription until the stone is lifted, because ogham is written on the edge of the stone and the letters can extend to either side of this.” Ogham inscriptions in general tend to spell out names of wealthy or powerful people, however.
“The cross from Old Kilmadock is a huge new find,” Adrián Maldonado, a research fellow at National Museums Scotland who was not involved in the discovery, told Live Science. “The most important part of the discovery is the ogham inscription; when it is fully revealed, it can tell us more about the language spoken by those in power in this area, and potentially add a new, unrecorded name in a time with very few historical sources.”
Cook suggests that the cross slab was originally used as “a public statue erected by a wealthy patron to celebrate both their Pictish heritage and their Christian faith. The ogham reflects the influence of Irish Christians.” Findings in other parts of the Old Kilmadock cemetery support that interpretation: Three additional inscribed stones have been found in two different alphabets. “I think this means they were a literate and intelligent religious community,” Cook said; there was “probably a monastery.”
The Pictish cross slab likely survived because it was reused in much later times as a grave covering in the Old Kilmadock cemetery. Cook and Kilpatrick plan to further study the cross slab once it is fully excavated and its pieces put back together. In collaboration with the local Rescuers of Old Kilmadock group, they are currently raising funds for this analysis, which will cost thousands of dollars.
“This discovery shows the value of archaeological investigation of early church sites in Scotland,” Maldonado concluded, “too few of which have been excavated. It is a huge win for community-led research, providing value both for local heritage and internationally.”
Rare golden sword pommel acquired by a Scottish museum
A pommel is a decorative piece attached to the bottom of a sword sometimes used as a counter-weight
An “exceptionally rare” gold sword pommel discovered by a metal detectorist near Stirling has been acquired by National Museums Scotland. The pommel, which is about 1,300 years old, was found in 2019 and was declared to the Scottish Treasure Trove unit.
The gold decoration which would have sat at the top of a sword handle measures 5.5cm wide, weighs 25g and was valued at about £30,000.
The find has been described as “hugely significant”.
Dr Alice Blackwell, senior curator of medieval archaeology and history at National Museums Scotland (NMS), said goldwork from this period was “virtually unknown” anywhere in the UK.
She said it showed the spectacular skill and craftsmanship of the early medieval period.
The pommel is thought to date from about 700 AD.
The solid gold object is encrusted with garnets and intricate goldwork which features religious motifs and fantastical creatures.
The discovery was made at Blair Drummond towards the end of 2019 but NMS said that due to restrictions during the pandemic decisions about its acquisition were delayed.
It was allocated to them on the recommendation of the Scottish Archaeological Finds Allocation Panel.
Dr Blackwell said its archaeological value was due to what it told us about important cultural, political and artistic interactions in northern Britain at this time.
She said its decoration combined elements from both Anglo-Saxon England and the kingdoms of Early Medieval Scotland.
“Early medieval Scotland is a really interesting period,” Dr Blackwell said.
“You have a number of culturally distinct kingdoms and the pommel’s design has taken from the different cultures and melded them together “
That melding of different cultural styles is known as the “insular art” style, which was made famous by illuminated manuscripts such as the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Dr Blackwell said this fusion of styles had made it hard to determine where exactly it was made and to whom it may have belonged.
However, she said it potentially could have belonged to royalty due to the higher standard of goldwork the pommel had compared with other goldware found in this period.
“In a way, this is the start of the artefact’s journey,” Dr Blackwell said.
“A lot of research and work is still to be done to uncover what stories it can tell us about the political and cultural landscape of Northern Britain at this time.”
Well-Preserved Iron Age Butter Found At The Bottom Of Lake In Scotland
The replica crannog on Loch Tay, where the butter was found.
Now, the wooden butter dish remains one of the most evocative items left behind by Scotland’s ancient water dwellers who made their homes on Loch Tay.
The dish was recovered during earlier excavations on the loch where at least 17 crannogs, or Iron Age wooden houses, were once dotted up and down the water.
Built from alder with a life span of around 20 years, the structures simply collapsed into the loch once they had served their purpose, with an incredible array of objects taken with them.
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The 2,500-year-old butter dish and the remains of the butter.
Among them was the dish which, remarkably, still carried traces of butter made by this Iron Age community.
Rich Hiden, the archaeologist at the Scottish Crannog Centre, said the item had helped to illuminate the everyday life of the crannog dwellers who farmed the surrounding land, and grew barley and ancient wheats such as spelt and emmer, and reared animals.
The crannogs were probably considered high-status sites which offered good security as well as easy access to trading routes along the Tay and into the North Sea.
Mr Hiden said conditions at the bottom of the loch had offered the perfect environment to preserve the butter and the dish.
He said: “Because of the fantastic anaerobic conditions, where there is very light, oxygen or bacteria to break down anything organic, you get this type of sealed environment.
“When they started excavating, they pulled out this square wooden dish, well around three-quarters of a square wooden dish, which had these really nice chisel marks on the sides as well as this grey stuff.”
Liped analysis on this matter found that it was dairy material, with experts believing it likely originated from a cow. Holes in the bottom of the wooden dish further suggest that it was used for the buttering process.
Cream would have been churned until thickened until it splits to form the buttermilk, with a woven cloth – possibly made from nettle fibres – placed in the dish with the clumps of cream and then further pushed through to separate the last of the liquid.
The butter then may have been turned into cheese by adding rennet, which naturally forms in a number of plants, including nettles.
Mr Hiden said: “This dish is so valuable in many ways. To be honest, we would expect people of this time to be eating dairy. In the early Iron Age, they had mastered the technology of smelting iron ore into to’s so mastering the technology of dairy we would expect.
“So while it may not surprise us that they are eating dairy, what is so important about this butter dish is that it helps us to identify what life was like in the crannogs and the skills and the tools that they had
“To me, that is archaeology at its finest. It is using the object itself to unravel the story. The best thing about this butter dish is that is so personal and offers us such a complete snapshot of what was happening here.
He added: “It is not just a piece of wood. You look at it and you start to extrapolate so much. If you start to pull one thread, you look at the tool marks and you see they were using very fine chisels to make this kind of object. They were probably making their own so that gives another aspect as to how life was here.”
It is believed that 20 people and animals lived in a crannog at any one time. Many trees were used to fashion the homes, with the Iron Age residents having a solid knowledge of trees with their houses thatched with reed and bracken.
Hazel was woven into panels to make walls and partitions.
Plans are underway to relocate the Scottish Crannog Centre to a bigger site at Dalerb, with three to four crannogs to be built in the water there.
A metal-working site uncovered in Moray may have helped arm Caledonian tribes against the Romans, before being burned down by the invaders. Archaeologists have described the site at Lochinver Quarry, near Elgin, as fascinating and unusual.
Archaeologists have found evidence of extensive metal production near Elgin
Evidence has been found of metal production over a period of up to 2,000 years from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age.
Archaeologists believe they could end up excavating as many as 40 iron smelting sites.
Prior to these discoveries around 25 such sites have been found in the whole of Scotland. Lochinver appears to have been abandoned suddenly and homes and other structures burned down.
Archaeologists suggest one possible explanation could be that it may have been the actions of Roman soldiers following their victory over Caledonians at the Battle of Mons Grapius around AD 83.
The site may have been used over a period of 1,500 to 2,000 years
Dr Clive Waddington, of Archaeology Research Services Ltd, said the evidence being found at Lochinver made it different from Moray’s other Bronze Age and Iron Age sites.
He said the later metal-working could possibly have been in response to the Roman invasion of Scotland, with iron needed for weapons.
Dr Waddington added: “Something happens on this site that removes any further activity.
“We have got these burnt timbers and abandoned pits for making charcoal.
“We have got pits with roasted ore – a valuable commodity – ready for smelting but just abandoned.”
Two cauldrons have also been found buried, possibly by the Lochinver’s residents in an effort to hide the highly valued items.
Dr Waddington said it was possible Lochinver was abandoned in the aftermath of Mons Grapius which saw Roman troops and cavalry defeat 30,000 Caledonians.
Suggested locations of the battle include Dunning in Perthshire, Carpow in Fife, Bennachie in Aberdeenshire and Culloden in the Highlands.
Dr Waddington said: “The battle was a big victory for the Romans and could explain why some sites were burned down, with Romans torching sites as they came through after the battle.”
Archaeologists have described Lochinver Quarry as fascinating and unusual
Archaeological Research Services Ltd and Aberdeenshire Council are investigating the site supported by funding from building materials company Tarmac.
The work has been further supported by various universities including radiocarbon dating at the University of Glasgow, specialist artefact conservation at the University of Durham and expert knowledge from the National Museum of Scotland.
Archaeologists track the Scottish whisky story from the black market to the global export
Archaeologists have returned to the site of the first legal distillery in Speyside to track how whisky went from a black market operation woven into the fabric of Scotland’s rural communities to one of the country’s biggest exports.
The original Glenlivet site, which was operated by farmer George Smith from 1824 after he made his underground whisky-making operation legal, is being excavated by archaeologists from National Trust for Scotland (NTS), who are working in conjunction with the distillery.
The site is around one kilometre from today’s home of Glenlivet, which Smith opened in 1859 to expand production and take advantage of a greater run of water off the hill.
The Pioneering Spirit project is now focusing on the original Glenlivet distillery after archaeologists spent months examining sites of illegal stills across the Highlands.
Derek Alexander, head of archaeological services at NTS, said: “The distillery we are working on here is a nice bridge between the small-scale illicit distilling and large-scale industrial production.”
Today’s Glenlivet site is modelled on Smith’s original distillery, which was set up on his farm.
Such was Smith’s unpopularity in the local community after he was granted a legal distilling licence under the 1823 Excise Act, which sanctioned distilling for a £10 licence fee and set payment per gallon of proof spirit, that he acquired two pistols to defend his property.
Mr Alexander said the aim of the dig was to find archaeology for each stage of the distilling process, with the operation set up around a courtyard.
Earlier, a piece of exciseman’s padlock was found at the site with pieces of the barrel now recovered.
Mr Alexander said: “We have also found the outline of the fireplaces where the stills were sitting.”
One may have been used for the wash still and the other for the spirit still, it is believed, with hopes that remain of grain drying still will also be found. Pieces of copper sulphite, a waste product of the distilling process, have been discovered.
The excavation will run for two weeks and will be assisted by NTS volunteers and members of the surrounding community, including schoolchildren.
Mr Alexander said: “It’s much easier to dig this site than those much harder to reach places, where we are carrying our equipment up a hill track for maybe an hour and then into a gully. These places are quite inaccessible by their nature and not that safe.
“We were using the same techniques as the excisemen would when they were out looking for illicit stills. You basically follow the burn line.”
Robert Athol, the newly appointed archivist for Chivas Brothers, which owns Glenlivet, said Smith risked “life and liberty” to produce whisky at his farm.
“His courage and conviction not only defined the path for The Glenlivet but was also influential on the development of Scotch whisky in general.”
NTS estimates there are at least 30 illicit stills across its 129 sites, including at Torridon, Kintail, Grey Mare’s Tail and the Mar Lodge Estate in western Aberdeenshire.
Man Finds Secret Window Hidden Behind Wallpaper in 19th-Century Home
A man discovered a secret window hidden behind wallpaper in his house, thought to date back to the 19th century, as he lovingly renovated the property. Alex Howard is restoring the antique grandeur to his home, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and has been sharing progress to his TikTok page, @housedoctoralex.
Howard, an author, has been painstakingly removing all the woodchip wallpaper throughout the house—similar to popcorn style—when he found something unusual lurking behind the hardboard. He shared a clip of himself up a ladder armed with a wallpaper scraper, as he pokes a hole through the covering, and realizes there’s something on the other side. Howard immediately rips off the wallpaper, shouting “window” as he uncovered the black-rimmed frame. He captioned the video, which can be seen here: “Wtf I found a hidden window in my flat,” adding: “Well that was unexpected.”
In the comments, he revealed the woodchip was “getting steamed off and re-lined next month,” explaining the window was covered by flimsy sheets of hardboard. Speaking to Newsweek, Howard explained the two-bedroom apartment was built around 1890, and he and his wife are slowly returning it to its former glory after it’s “no doubt been home to countless students and tyrannical landlords over the years.”
He said: “There’s nearly always a window connecting the kitchen alcove and a box room (which has often been converted into a kitchen bathroom). Presumably, it was the Victorian idea of giving that little interior space some natural light. In fact, I learnt only yesterday they are called ‘borrow windows,’ presumably because you’re borrowing light from another room.
“When we arrived, I did that classic ‘dad’ thing of tapping up the wall to hear if the tone changed. Sure enough, I discovered that the window had just been dry-walled over. The fact that there was then a layer of woodchip on top of that, suggests that it was done at least as far back as the 70s.”
He added the glass was single-glazed, saying: “They’re that old pre-war ripply glass like all the windows in this flat. All our windows make things look a bit wibbly, and distorted when you look through them because of the more unrefined, pre-war glazing techniques. You can see the oddly replaced pane because it doesn’t distort.”
Photo of the hidden windows. Alex Howard discovered secret windows lurking underneath wallpaper in his 19h-century house.
The clip, shared in June, amassed more than 400,000 views, and people were so intrigued that Howard shared a follow-up clip. It shows he found a pair of windows, with two panes each, covered up between two rooms.
“So some of you have been asking about the backstory to these here windows that I discovered yesterday,” he said.
Howard, who moved in two months ago, gave viewers a mini-tour, saying: “I’ve worked it out, follow me down the hall, and into the box room. But why you might say might one block windows to a box room.
“It was once a bedroom. The reason I know is that up here there’s a light switch which controls the lights in the room. This means at some point there was a mezzanine level up here with a bed installed when this was rented out as its own separate bedroom.
“Some of you may have heard of HMO, or houses in multiple occupancies, before this was introduced any room could be rented out to someone regardless of whether or not it had a window in it. Thankfully we live in more enlightened times now and you can only let out a room if it’s got a window.”
It’s thought that as the window connects two rooms, rather than leading to the outside, they were covered to give each tenant privacy.
Howard explained: “This is what we’re putting the blocked-up window down to—the room on the other side is a box room with its plug sockets/switches mounted high up the wall. We reckon it was rented out as a room with a mezzanine bed, pre-HMO regulations when landlords crammed these flats full of students to cash in.
“But what is clear is that the blocked-up window is an attempt to make that postage stamp of a box room ‘private.’ Pretty sad to think that tiny, windowless space was some poor student/servant’s room at one point!”
He added that the smaller room was what the U.K. refers to as a “box room,” which is essentially a glorified cupboard, which is why the bed was on a mezzanine.
Howard clarified they’re “just a bit bigger than a walk-in cupboard,” adding: “They’re small rooms, bigger than a cupboard but smaller than a conventional room, that was traditionally used for lodgers. This one’s about 6×5.'”
Numerous people commented on the original clip, with Liam Burgeson asking: “Who does these things.”
Mecha_genki said: “We had this too! Didn’t notice it because it was on the side we never went down”
While MissMisty wrote: “Why was the window covered in craft paper? Lean against it too hard and your arm would go through.”
Marvin Harold joked: “Previous owner must have worked nights.”
Archaeologists from Edinburgh have discovered more than 100 Iron Age settlements in southwest Scotland that date from the time of Roman occupation.
The team has been surveying an area north of Hadrian’s Wall to better understand the impact of Rome’s rule on the lives of indigenous people.
Researchers explored nearly 600 square miles around Burnswark hillfort, Dumfries-shire, where Roman legions campaigned as the Empire expanded northwards.
Previous archaeological research on the terrain between Hadrian’s Wall and the Empire’s more northerly frontier at the Antonine Wall had focused predominantly on the Roman perspective.
It had concentrated on the camps, forts, roads and walls that Rome’s empire built to control northern Britain – rather than sites associated with native tribes.
Immense firepower
The new study initially focused specifically on Burnswark – home to the greatest concentration of Roman projectiles ever found in Britain, and a testament to the firepower of Rome’s legions.
The research team went on to scour an area of 580 square miles beyond the hillfort, using the latest laser-scanning technology.
Although much of the area had been studied before, researchers found 134 previously unrecorded Iron Age settlements — bringing the total number known in the region to more than 700.
The survey’s discovery of so many small farmsteads is a significant finding, researchers say. Such settlements offer key insights into how the majority of the indigenous population would have lived.
Analysis showed sites were dispersed evenly across the landscape — with dense clusters in some places — suggesting a highly organised settlement pattern, researchers say.
Empire’s edge
Work on Hadrian’s Wall began in AD 122 and, for two decades, the defensive fortification between the Solway Firth and the River Tyne marked the northernmost border of the Roman empire.
In AD 142, having made further gains north, the Romans built a second defensive line called the Antonine Wall between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde.
A few decades later, however, this second wall was abandoned with the Empire drawing its frontier back south to Hadrian’s Wall.
The findings of this latest study by the University of Edinburgh, Historic Environment Scotland and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre have been published in the journal, Antiquity.
The study is part of a wider project called Beyond Walls, which is seeking to shed light on ancient sites, stretching from Durham in the south to the fringes of the Scottish Highlands in the north.
Exciting prospect
Study author Dr Manuel Fernández-Götz, of the University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology, said: “This is one of the most exciting regions of the Roman Empire, as it represented its northernmost frontier.
“The land we now know as Scotland was one of the very few areas in Western Europe over which the Roman army never managed to establish full control”.
Fellow author Dr Dave Cowley of Historic Environment Scotland said: “The discovery of so many previously unknown sites helps us to reconstruct settlement patterns.
“Individually, they are very much routine, but cumulatively they help us understand the landscape within which the indigenous population lived.”
