The National Museums Scotland has acquired the Peebles Hoard, a collection of over 500 Bronze Age artifacts that remained hidden underground for 3,000 years. Discovered in 2020 near Peebles in the Scottish Borders, the hoard includes rare bronze items, woven textiles, wooden objects, and fragile components made of leather and wood. It promises to transform understanding of Bronze Age Scotland.
The acquisition was announced four years after metal detectorist Mariusz Stepien uncovered the hoard in a field. Upon discovering some strange bronze disc-shaped objects decorated with concentric circles, Stepien resisted the urge to dig further and reported the find to the Treasure Trove Unit, allowing experts to coordinate a complex extraction of the treasure in a single block of earth.
"The Peebles Hoard is exceptional, an utterly unique discovery that rewrites our understanding of both Bronze Age communities in Scotland and our prehistoric international connections," said Matthew Knight, Senior Curator of Prehistory at National Museums Scotland. The hoard contains many unique artifacts, some of which have "no archaeological parallel anywhere in western Europe," and whose functions remain unclear.
Among the finds are two rattle pendants—the first ever discovered in Scotland. These intricate objects, more commonly found in Denmark, northern Germany, and northern Poland, are securely dated to the Late Bronze Age. The rattle pendants are created from interlinked bronze rings and pendant plates that would have hung from a horse or wooden vehicle and rattled as they moved.
The entire hoard was removed from the ground as a single block weighing 160kg. It was subsequently scanned using computed tomography at the University of Southampton to preserve its original structure and capture the internal relationships between items in their original context. "CT scanning the hoard was certainly a big challenge due to the scale," said Professor Ian Sinclair from the µ-VIS X-ray Imaging Centre. His team relished bringing their engineering expertise to such a historical find.
The scanning process revealed that some of the objects in the hoard were made using lost-wax casting, representing some of the earliest evidence of this technique in Bronze Age Scotland. This sophisticated bronze-working method is rarely documented in Bronze Age Britain. The CT scans also captured details of the careful arrangement of the material, allowing archaeologists to reconstruct the performance of the deposition itself.
An excavation by archaeologists and conservators followed at the National Museums Collection Centre in Edinburgh. The micro-excavation uncovered many complex composite objects, often intertwined or strapped together. Among these were bronze buttons found still threaded on their original cords, and decorated looped buttons retaining the cords on which they were strung.
The hoard includes an array of small bronze buttons looped onto cords, woven textiles, wooden objects, and the remains of complex decorative straps, the purpose of which is yet to be discovered. The survival of bronze pins, studs, and bosses still set into organic material marks the Peebles Hoard as unique.
Among the discovered objects, a complete bronze sword was found still snug in its wooden scabbard, allowing the archaeologists to place the collection in the Late Bronze Age, around 1000-800 BCE. The sword, of a classic British design known as the Ewart Park type, currently provides the best dating evidence for the hoard's deposition, placing it at the start of the 1st millennium BCE.
The Peebles Hoard's preservation is largely due to the careful excavation and conservation efforts. However, National Museums Scotland faces the challenge of raising funds to preserve these artifacts for future generations. The museum has launched a fundraising campaign to support the costs of conserving the Peebles Hoard, aiming to prevent the deterioration of fragile organic materials and unlock its research potential.
"Thanks to the diligence of the finder, expertise of colleagues at the Treasure Trove Unit and National Museums Scotland, and the generosity of the team at the µ-VIS X-ray Imaging Centre, University of Southampton, we have made significant progress," said Knight. "It is essential to obtain more funds to continue our conservation and research, preserve the treasure for future generations, and uncover the stories of Scotland's ancient past."
The discovery of the Peebles Hoard demonstrates Scotland's participation in a broader North Sea trading network during the Bronze Age. The larger and more recognizable objects in the hoard confirm Scotland's importance during this period as part of an international network of communities across the North Sea.
Efforts are now underway to secure funding for continued research and conservation of the Peebles Hoard collection. The project so far represents just the start of the work needed on this material. The many survivals in the hoard require urgent conservation to prevent further deterioration. As research continues, archaeologists are excited by the prospects of what this material will tell them about how the hoard was formed and about Bronze Age Scotland.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.