Exhibition explores Scotland's thousand year love affair with silver

An exhibition is underway at the National Museum of Scotland on Scotland’s Early Silver. Supported by The Glenmorangie Company the exhibition shows how for Scotland, unlike other parts of Europe, it was silver, not gold, that became the most important precious metal over the course of the first millennium AD. Scotland's Early Silver traces the first thousand years of the Scottish love affair with silver. The exhibition will reveal the impact of the metal from the Roman, early medieval and Viking periods. 

Amongst the items on display will be the first public display of the remarkable Dairsie Hoard, comprising of over 300 pieces of silver which date to the late 3rd century AD found in Dairsie, Fife. Also on display is the Pictish Gaulcross hoard, comprising of over a hundred items dating from the 5th - 6th centuries AD discovered near the site of two stone circles formerly known as North Gaulcross and South Gaulcross in Aberdeenshire in 2013. An earlier discovery had been made at Gaulcross in the 1830's of which only three items remain. The gaulcross discovery shows similarities to the Norrie’s Law Hoard of 170 pieces, found near Largo, Fife in 1819. 

Featuring objects dating from AD75 to AD1000, Scotland’s Early Silver explores the part that silver played in the transformation of society in Scotland throughout the first millennium AD. It is on from 13 October 2017 to 25 February 2018 at National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh and admission is free.