Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2022 - 29

encased in a housing of fine Anglo-Saxon gold filigree. A
spout was then attached to the top, and a tiny channel was
filled with a precious liquid, likely either perfume or holy
water. Researchers now even know who was responsible for
transforming this tiny sculpture into a jar. Although difficult
to discern with the naked eye, 3-D X-rays revealed a Latin
inscription on the jar's base: " Bishop Hyguald ordered [this]
to be made. " There is no mention of a Bishop Hyguald in
historical records, but Hyguald is a Northumbrian name
that appears in contemporaneous church documents. " The
story of that vessel is only beginning to be told now, but
when you look at what's inside the hoard, it's looking more
and more Northumbrian, " says Maldonado. " There is almost
nothing left that is Viking about it. "
T
he silver and gold artifacts contained in the
vase are extraordinary, but perhaps even more so are
the objects with seemingly lesser conventional value.
Nestled among the vase's more valuable contents were items
with little economic worth, including glass beads that
were already centuries old when buried, and an
assortment of other peculiar antique objects that
Goldberg believes may have been family relics.
" To me the collection in the vessel looks like
heirlooms, " he says. " They're things that are
valued not because they are gold or silver
or for their material wealth, but for their
artistry and for how old they are. "
Included among these items are
the Galloway Hoard's most curious
objects--two small balls of compacted
earth that survived for more than a millennium
thanks to the vessel's airtight seal.
Objects such as these normally would have dried
out and fallen apart long ago. X-ray imaging revealed that,
although they were made from ordinary dirt, the balls
had tiny flecks of gold scattered throughout them. After
some consideration, Goldberg and the team of researchers
recalled similar objects in the Vatican Museums' collections.
During the early Middle Ages when pilgrims visited sacred
sites in the Holy Land they sometimes took a small amount
of mud and rubbed it in the dust on or beneath shrines,
rolled it into a ball, and carried it home as a memento.
Because many of the reliquaries that held these treasured
souvenirs were gilded, the dust and dirt often picked up
tiny specks of gold. It is likely that the delicate balls of
dirt in the Galloway Hoard were transported hundreds of
miles from the eastern Mediterranean to Scotland. " People
always ask me, 'What's your favorite item?' and for me it's
always been the dirt balls, " says Goldberg. " There is something
that is really human about them, and they present
us with an opportunity to explore the type of story that
you wouldn't normally be able to tell. They were placed
in that lidded vessel with these other things--gold, silk,
and crystal--because they were considered of equal, if not
potentially greater, value. "
archaeology.org
D
espite nearly a decade of study, scholars are still
not certain who buried the Galloway Hoard, why
they did so, or even whether they were Vikings or
Anglo-Saxons. Perhaps it comprises the worldly possessions
of a family or group of families. " We may have different
stories involved in this hoard, " says Goldberg. " It's not just
the story of silver and the economy in the ninth century, but
also the story of a family and the things that reminded them
of the generations that had gone before them. " Maldonado
believes the ecclesiastical objects suggest that the hoard may
comprise the treasury of a local church. Maybe, like many
other hoards of its time, it was quickly stashed away in an
attempt to hide valuable objects when trouble loomed on the
horizon, although the decoy layer and the meticulous nature
of the burial seem to suggest otherwise. Packing these items
methodically, wrapping them in cloth or placing them in
pouches, and then burying them took time.
There was very likely more than one party responsible for the
Galloway Hoard. Researchers have identified at least five names
on objects from the hoard-the four etched on the backs
of the Viking arm rings and that of Bishop Hyguald,
written in gold on the bottom of the rock-crystal
jar. But many other people who are not named
nevertheless had a role in creating the objects
and in how they made their way to a field in
o
o
w
j
n
a
A ball made from compacted earth may have
been a memento that was taken home from a
pilgrimage to a sacred shrine in the Holy Land.
A
b
p
Scotland. These items passed through countless
hands and took centuries to be gathered into a single
collection. These peripheral figures are also part of the
S
h
Galloway Hoard's story. " If you think about all the people that
were involved in making these things, all the people that they
might have been traded to, all the people that might have worn
them at some point, you're suddenly talking about hundreds of
ancient lives that we had no insight into before this, " says Goldberg.
" We now have the opportunity to think about everyone
that was involved in this hoard and not just focus on the moment
of final burial. There are years of work that go into pulling out
the threads of this story, and it is growing all the time. "
Part of the story is the way archaeologists now think about
what may-or may not-make a Viking hoard. The Galloway
Hoard is providing new insights into the changing world of
ninth-century Scotland. It is a microcosm of the region of
Galloway and the people who lived there during this tumultuous
era when different kingdoms crossed its borders and
competing cultures clashed. " The Galloway Hoard is not a
Viking hoard, it's a Viking Age hoard, " says Maldonado. " But
the Viking Age is more than just people from Scandinavia-it
eventually involves much of the world. It's looking more and
more like the story of the hoard is that of a group of people
swept up in the drama of the Viking Age. " n
Jason Urbanus is a contributing editor at Archaeology.
29
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Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2022

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