Unboxing An Ancient Roman Treasure Chest (23 Kg)\Unboxing An Ancient Roman Treasure Chest

In 1919, over 23 kilograms of ancient treasure was discovered near Edinburgh, one of the largest hoards of Roman silver ever found. It's called the Traprane Treasure, named after the ancient hill fort where it was found, I've been fascinated by its story for years, and today I've come to the National Museum of Scotland to see some of these incredible artefacts up close. To uncover its secrets, I'm meeting the leading expert on the Traprane Treasure. He led a series of excavations that helped unlock its mysteries and reveal the hoard's true significance, Dr Fraser Hunter. What a pleasure it is to be here, and this is the amazing Traprane Treasure. Yeah, one of the most remarkable finds of late Roman silver from anywhere in the empire or beyond. And it was found not within the boundaries of the Roman Empire? Yeah, Traprane Law lies just east of Edinburgh, and at the time that this is buried in the middle of the 5th century, the Roman Empire has receded some considerable distance to the south. In fact, Roman Britain is crumbling by this time. So we're sitting here in Traprane, on a major local power centre. This is a story about people beyond the frontier, rather than Romans within it. The Romans began their conquest of Britain in 43 AD, slowly expanding their empire northwards. Their northern frontier shifted over time, as they tried to secure land beyond Hadrian's Wall. But they never held onto this territory long term. Further north, above modern day Edinburgh, tribal groups would ultimately unite and become the Picts, who fiercely resisted Roman control. Caught up between these powers were the Votadini, a tribe living in the Buffer State. They appear to have used this position to their advantage, gaining the rewards of alliance with Rome, without falling under its rule. This lasted until around 410 AD, when the Romans withdrew from Britain. What is the story behind this treasure, and where it was found in Scotland? Well to understand the treasure, we have to understand the place. And Traprane is this great volcanic hill that rises out of the East Lothian Plain. It's a dominant thing from miles around. Because it catches the eye, if you're somebody ambitious, or somebody wants to be powerful, you need to control Traprane. So Traprane had been occupied and fought over for thousands of years. In the Roman period, it became the centre for the Lothians. And the people in Traprane built up relationships with the Roman world. So even when Rome wasn't in Scotland, the people in Traprane were in good terms with them. They were the eyes and ears of Rome, north of Hadrian's Wall. And so what do we know about the discovery of this extraordinary silver hoard? It must have been a moment of great dramas. This was done during excavations from 1914 to 1923, and they were led by Alexander Curl, who used to be a director of this very museum. He didn't go out to site every day because he was a busy museum man, so his workmen were labouring away. And on the 12th of May 1919, while they were clearing one of the levels with a pickaxe, the foreman, George Pringle, brought up a silver vessel on the end of his pickaxe. In fact, you can still see the hole made with the pickaxe in that vessel. That's the first object discovered? Gently cleaning it with a pick is how it's described. And they then very carefully cleaned the area round about, discovered this hoard of treasure, and went down to call Curl and say something exciting has been found. But they didn't obviously do mobile phones in 1919. They went down to the local public phone, but they were very careful because there were ears everywhere. So they left a message so guarded, Curl didn't realise it was anything important. It didn't come out till the next day. And his diary describes how flabbergasted he was to see this array of silver on the edge of the trench. But the 23 kilograms of silver unearthed by Curl and his team at Traprane Law didn't emerge in whole form like we see today. This is hack silver. So none of the vessels you see here went into the ground in this condition. They were flattened, they were crumpled, they were broken, they were fragmentary. And an Edinburgh silversmith, they did a lot of restoration, doing things that would make modern conservators weep, but creating this wonderful impression of how the vessels once looked. And is it really high percentage silver as well? At this period, Roman silver is high purity. So this is between 93 and 95 percent pure. And this is better than sterling silver. It means, of course, this is a value, not just as beautiful objects, but as raw material. These objects bring us to the elites of Roman society, south of Hadrian's Wall. This object, it basically looks complete and like a bowl today. What is it? Well, it was found folded in half. It's been stretched out by the silversmith. So it looks as it would have done 1,800 years ago, 1,600 years ago. This used to be used as a washbasin, either for washing your hands at a feast, or more likely, actually, for bathing from. Silver was used for high status bathing by elite women. And this particular one has got a real watery theme to it. So not only have you got swan-handled hooks there, they would have taken the handles for holding it by. But the design in the center is a sea nymph, a nereid, riding a sea panther. In Greek mythology, the nereids, or sea nymphs, were 50 daughters of the god Nereus, known as the old man of the sea. Nereids were spirits of the sea, often depicted riding mythical marine creatures. They symbolized the beauty, power, and mystery of the sea, and were believed to guide sailors safely across the waters. So the panther's got a fish-like tail curling around, and then there's creatures of the sea popping out from all round about her. So the watery symbolism is all over the thing. Fraser, the detail on that central image, I mean, it's extraordinary. You can see the little line, the little outlines of all the figures. It's amazing. It's absolutely fabulous, an absolutely beautiful piece of late Roman art. And the hair as well, look at that. Yeah, yeah. So the depiction of both the woman and the setting is absolutely fantastic. You can even see her jewellery, the armbands, the body chain and so on, and then the beasts, the fish, the dolphins, the shells coming out, and the patterning of the sea in behind to give you that color contrast. So as you look at it, you turn your head around, you see different bits of decoration. The light catches different things as you move. That's how we've been at the time as well. As you tilted this vessel, you've appreciated different aspects of its story. But the Nereid isn't the only figure from Greco-Roman mythology found in this hoard. You see these figures that we're familiar with from the Roman myths and legends. Hercules. This is Hercules. Wow. Of course, it's a figure that we're all well familiar with, the great Greek and Roman hero. And you can see the curly beard. That is incredible. Look at the details on that beard. And the club, the remains of his club. You've got the club on the side as well, so that's how you can identify that this is Hercules. Also, he's a big, chunky bloke. If you look at the size of his neck, this is no shrinking violet. This is a big, strong hero. That's a good sign. And so what do we think this was? Do we think this was another kind of washing bowl? No, the washing bowls typically have these flutes on them. This would be used on the table. So here we're moving into the realm of elite dinner parties, if you like. And one of the ways you would show off is by serving your food in silver. So it'd be served in silver. It'd be eaten from silver. Silver was the color of a late Roman dining party. And do we see this also in these objects here? I mean, that looks pretty similar to what we might have on our dining room tables today. Yeah, the spoons that we use today, their genealogy goes back to the Roman period. We perhaps don't have anything quite as acute as the little dolphins. So in Roman mythology, dolphins occur a lot in sea stories like that, but they also occur in beliefs around the survival of the souls. The dolphins would carry the souls to the Isles of the Blessed after death. So dolphins are a good news story in Roman iconography. For these wealthy Romans, silverware was a statement of class, culture and beliefs. But the objects that found their way to Choprain speak to a world in transition. By the 4th century AD, a new religion was rising across the empire, Christianity, complete with its own symbols and stories. This is pretty different, isn't it? Absolutely. So what we have here is early Christian iconography, and it's the earliest Christian item from Scotland, although it isn't being used as such in Scotland. It isn't evidence of Christian beliefs in the 5th century in particular. But what we see here also, I guess, is the contested late Roman world. This is a point when Christianity is becoming the dominant religion. There are still plenty of people who believe in those gods as well. And so the mix of both pagan and Christian items in the one hoard isn't actually that surprising. This reflects this contested world of late antiquity. And I also noticed with this vessel that it's not completely silver in its colour. No, silver is itself dramatic, but sometimes they gild things to make you look even more impressive or to pick out particular bits of decoration. So in this case, they pick up some of the decoration in gold to draw the eye to it, and there's a thin layer of gold applied over the surface. And what imagery do we have on this particular flag? It's a really fascinating mixture of Old and New Testament scenes. Wow. So let's have a look. There's four scenes round about, and we'll start with perhaps the most obvious one. Ah, OK. It's Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Oh, is that the snake winding its way? Yeah, the serpent making improper suggestions to Eve. You then have another Old Testament scene here, which is Moses, the larger figure, striking the Rock of Horeb to bring forth water for the Israelites in the desert. And there you get the Israelites gathering with vessels. They're holding their bowls, and that's the stream of water. Wow. And then they come into the New Testament. And whenever it's Christmas time, I always try to turn this vessel around to face out so people can see it, because what you have is the Virgin Mary and the Christ child receiving the three wise men from the East. One, two, three. And you see the little smurf-like hats, which are typical indications of somebody who's travelled from the East, and they're bearing gifts. And then the final scene is hotly debated among specialists, because at the top of the scene has been lost when the handle that was originally part of this wine jug was removed. So some people see it's to do with the betrayal of Christ by Peter. Some people argue it's the miracle of the quails in the desert, an Old Testament scene. A recent theory is it reflects the ascension of Christ to heaven. So what we have in the centre is an angel pointing to the spot where Christ will reappear from. And that would then give you the beginning of Christ's life here, and then his ascension to heaven. So it's bookending the story. Fraser, I've never ever seen an object like this. And to think this is some 1500 years old, thereabouts, and to have this wealth of Christian imagery from the Old Testament and the New all together on one vessel, that's incredible. It's a really impressive piece of early Christian iconography. It's why it's such a well-known object, because it does really take you into the mindset of early Christianity, and you can get a real sense of how these stories that are still well-known today are forming and becoming fundamental by the fourth, early fifth century. Despite all it reveals, there are still many mysteries surrounding the hoard. But some of the smallest items hold the biggest clues to its origin. So how can we date this hoard? How do we know that it's about the fifth century? The dating of Tropane is a really interesting, really complicated question. We know that the earliest objects are made around about the year 300. Stylistically, we can say the date of some of the other objects is around 400. This one, for example, is 400 early fifth century. So these things here are late Roman coins, and they're of the emperors Valens and Theodosius and Honorius, this one here. So Honorius takes us right into around the year 400. But actually the story gets better than that, because this is not what a Roman coin is meant to look like. These are what's called silicoe, and they should be about twice that diameter. And what somebody has done is trimmed away the silver around the edges to recover some of the silver to reuse, but leaving literally its face value. So the face of the emperor is still there to guarantee the value of the coin. And this is something that's a very particular British habit. And numismatists will argue with this for years, but the best interpretation seems to be after the flow of coin stops to Britain in about 409 or something. And Britain separates from the rest of the empire. To try to keep a coin economy going, people are clipping the silver and either making copies or using the silver in other forms to pay people by weight. But the coins themselves still circulate as a face value coinage. So these show the dating of the hoard is in somewhere into the first half of the fifth century. And we think around about 450 or so is when the hoard was buried. These fascinating artifacts are just a small selection of the 250 plus objects found at Traprane lore. But how did so much Roman silver end up buried far beyond the frontier, in the hands of what they considered barbarians? To understand the story of Traprane, we need to understand this material. This stuff here, okay. And the trajectory that goes from the complete vessels to the fragments. Because the complete vessels tell us about the world before Traprane, the use of this material within the Roman world. Hacksilver is the way it comes to Traprane lore. And this is where the story has changed a lot in recent years. Because people used to think that this was the work of barbarians, because surely only barbarians could chop up Roman silver. And yet what our research has shown is, if they were barbarians, they were obsessive compulsive barbarians, they were tremendously careful in what they were doing. So you look at this vessel here, which is a dish that's been chopped into quarters. Beautiful decorations once again. But no concern for decoration when they've chopped it up. Or you take these two fragments here, which come from the same original vessel. Together they weigh exactly eight Roman ounces, so two thirds of a Roman pound. And originally there's a fold line that suggests they were originally folded together. So what it shows is, originally these were chopped to Roman weight standards, and they were chopped really carefully. So you look at the really neat incision lines, it's almost surgical the way these are being done. And our argument is, this is done inside the Roman world at a time of economic crisis. When it doesn't really matter if you get big flashy silver vessels anymore, what you want is silver you can take with you at times of crisis. And the third and fourth centuries are full of crises in the Roman world. The third and fourth centuries were turbulent times for Rome. Emperors rose and fell in quick succession as rival generals fought for power, plunging the empire into repeated civil wars. Foreign invasions tested its borders, while disease and economic troubles strained its heartlands. For Britain, these upheavals brought fewer resources and far less stability. But the question then is, why does it come north of Hadrian's Wall? And it comes north not in one go, it comes north over a long period of time, over a hundred years or more. And this comes back to the question of, who are these people entreprene? And we think they are Rome's eyes and ears in the north, Rome has given them subsidies, but they may also be serving for Rome, they may be swords for hire. And one of the ways silver is moving around is for military service. And a chunk of this material is likely to be effectively the pay packets. Mercenary pay, yeah. And so that's really interesting. So there could well be a military context behind the story of this. Behind some of it. And in fact, there are some bits of military equipment, although again, they probably come north as hack silver. So this fragment here. Oh, look at that. Is a military buckle. A silver buckle. A silver buckle with gilding on it. And this is owned by somebody who's a Christian, because you'll see an alpha and an omega. If one knows one's Bible, alpha and omega beginning and the end, the first and the last. So it's one of the classic biblical quotes. One of the symbols you see on early Christian iconography is the alpha and omega. And the fact this is carved onto a belt buckle indicates the person who owned this was themselves a Christian. That's absolutely extraordinary. In early medieval Scotland, silver was more precious than gold. Brought in from the Roman world as diplomatic gifts, subsidies and mercenary payments, it quickly became a powerful symbol of status and influence in local society. And after it reaches Traprane Law, what do we think happens next to it? This is a tremendous resource of raw material from the people on the law. There is no silver in Iron Age Scotland. So this is a new, dramatic, prestigious material that they can melt down and turn into their own prestige items. If this had not been frozen in time by burial, it would have been recycled and reused as silver chains and brooches and spiral fingerings, the kind of things you see in hordes like Norrie's Law, the kind of things you see in the cases around about us. This is one of the ways that people on Traprane stay powerful, and they can give those as gifts to people they want to impress. So silver is fundamental to the power games of the fifth century. It's fascinating to think then, isn't it, that even though the Romans didn't conquer this part of Britain, they leave a lasting impact on it down into the medieval period, through objects like this? Yeah. I just wonder if tantalising things, and that's the long-time impact of Rome, is not because you had this imperial fist descending on the country. The legacy of Rome is the raw material. So for centuries after Rome has vanished, Rome's influence is still being felt. And so if all of this silver was so valuable into the medieval times, why do we think it ends up buried on Traprane Law? The burial of Horde is one of the most difficult things to answer. It's really difficult to understand why things are buried. The setting of this doesn't provide that many clues either. We know it's buried in a pit out in a yard outside a house, so it's in a secluded spot. It's likely to be buried for safekeeping. We know that the site wasn't abandoned at that time. There's another two or three generations of activity on the site, but why the owner of that Horde chose to bury it, we simply don't know. For some reason, they put their treasure in a pit and were never able to come back to recover it. For over 1,500 years, this Horde remained buried on top of Traprane Law, its secrets untold. These remarkable objects have already revealed much about the people who buried them, about the Romans and their rule over Britannia, as well as the complex relationships between them. And what's most exciting of all is what they may tell us in the future. Do you think there are still more secrets to uncover to learn about this Horde with more research? Research never stops, and I think that's one of the fascinating things about the Horde. We published this big bumper book on Traprane Law, everything you could ever want to know about the treasure, and yet there are still loose ends coming out of that. There's things we can do, we could now do with the Horde, for example, in terms of analysing the silver, which would help us to understand where it came from, that we weren't able to do at the time. And with this Horde that's been out of the ground for more than 100 years, the fact that there's always new stories to tell is one of the things that makes it just so exciting. We're limited only by the questions we ask. Frozen in time, these treasures are lasting evidence of the ties between Rome and powerful communities in the north. As crises rocked the empire, Roman rule in Britain faltered, finally collapsing in the 5th century. Those in the north thrived, the reused silver laying the foundations of medieval Scotland. It's fascinating to see these objects up close, their remarkable craftsmanship, and the journey they've taken. Traded, broken and buried, every stage speaks to the different people who handled them. These treasures aren't just relics of Rome, they're a bridge to the birth of Scotland. Hi there, I'm Dan Snow, and if you love history, you know that History Hit is on a mission to bring the past to life. Every week we travel the world to film original and in-depth documentaries, and now History Hit has launched a YouTube membership to give you access to even more films released weekly. Become a History Hit channel member now to make sure you never miss out on exclusive documentaries on topics like newly discovered shipwrecks and the clash of gladiators. We cover all time periods and all subjects, from Pompeii to D-Day. Click the join button on the History Hit YouTube channel, or click the link in the description and see for yourself what History Hit has to offer. We can't wait to have you join the team.