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

Portrayals of Vikings usually involve violent plundering and pillaging but a recently unearthed stash of 1000-year-old items reveals they were a lot more: hugely well travelled, great traders and enterprising.

A Viking warrior, or at least what we imagine he might look like.Credit: Getty Images

A show coming to Melbourne Museum reveals this other side to those people known as Vikings, through an extraordinary haul of treasures known as the Galloway Hoard.

Buried in about AD900, the hoard was discovered in Scotland in September 2014. Among the precious artefacts are a vessel from Iran, rock crystals and textiles, and silver bullion, treasures from Ireland, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and as far away as Asia.

National Museums Scotland Medieval archaeology and history principle curator Professor Martin Goldberg says the hoard provides insights into the people and the local societies of around 900AD, a time of major upheaval.

The unusual range of Anglo-Saxon material it includes illustrates how the region in which it was unearthed – now southern Scotland – was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria in the ninth century, whose power and influence was waning as a result of Scandinavian invasions.

Dr Martin Goldberg with items from the Galloway Hoard.

None of the material is what you would expect to find in the stereotype of a Viking hoard, Goldberg says.

The hoard was found in four parcels, some of which were packed into a silver vessel with a lid, found buried in the lower layer, presumably to hide it and keep it safe. The vessel itself is extraordinary, decorated with Zoroastrian iconography. Through isotopic analysis, Goldberg says, the materials it is made from have been traced to a specific mine in modern-day Iran.

While there is more gold in this than in any other hoard found in Britain, some of the most fascinating items are personal or sentimental, according to Goldberg. A group of vividly decorated disc brooches, for example, might have belonged to several generations of women from the same powerful family.

“This portion of the hoard is like a time capsule, a family history told through their most treasured possessions,” he says.

A gold bird pin from the Galloway Hoard, dated to about AD900.Credit: National Museums of Scotland

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.

Items from the Galloway Hoard, housed at National Museums Scotland, are coming to Melbourne Museum.Credit: National Museums Scotland

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.

“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.”

Treasures of the Viking Age: The Galloway Hoard is at Melbourne Museum from August 29- January 2026.