“Anglo-Saxon crosses of this type are extremely rare, and only one other – much less elaborate – is known from the ninth century.”
The National Museums Scotland Cross before (left) and after (right) restoration work began in 2017.
In 2014, treasure hunter Derek MacLennan made the discovery of his life. After spotting a piece of silver poking out of the ground in a Scottish field, he and two friends started digging. What they found was one of the biggest finds of Viking Age artefacts in British history – including a 1,000-year-old cross that had just been restored to its former glory.
The artefact is one of more than 100 gold and silver items found that day and was subsequently acquired and preserved by National Museums Scotland. The historic find is now known as the Galloway Hoard.
National Museums Scotland One of the four ends of the cross, which retains amazing detail.
“At first I didn't realise what I'd found,” MacLennan told the BBC. “Then I turned it over, ran my thumb over it and saw the St Andrew's Cross design and knew straight away it was a Viking. I was in shock, the endorphins were flooding my system and I was stumbling towards my friends waving it in the air.”
According to The Smithsonian, the ninth-century cross was made in Northumbria (present-day northern England and southern Scotland) and is decorated with gospel symbols and gold and black inlays. It was found with a thin metal cord wrapped around it.
After detailed cleaning, engravings of one of the four New Testament evangelists were discovered on the dirt-covered cross: Matthew as a man, Mark as a lion, Luke as a calf, and John as an eagle.
National Museums Scotland's 1,000-year-old cross during its restoration.
The four Gospel writers, three of whom are depicted as animals, were decorated with black niello (or metal alloy) and gold leaf. Surprisingly, no one has seen the cross since the ninth century. Experts speculate that it was deliberately buried with other relics and was once worn by a priest or king.
Indeed, Dr Martin Goldberg, chief curator of the Early Medieval and Viking collections, is fairly confident that whoever owned this particular piece was a high-ranking member of society.
“You can imagine someone taking it off their neck and wrapping a chain around it to bury it in the ground,” he said. “It has such a personal connotation. We assume that a lot of church treasures were stolen from monasteries… This is one of the [survivors].”
“The pectoral cross… is an outstanding example of Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing,” added Lesley Webster, who previously curated the British Museum’s British, Prehistoric and European collections. “The discovery of this hanging cross… is of great significance for the study of early medieval goldsmithing
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