St Ninian's Isle Treasure

The hoard was discovered on 4 July 1958 by a schoolboy, Douglas Coutts, during an excavation of a medieval chapel on St Ninian's Isle. Coutts found the treasure in a wooden box, which had been buried under a cross-marked slab. Coutts was helping visiting archaeologists led by Professor Andrew Charles O'Dell of Aberdeen University. It is believed that the treasure was hidden beneath the floor of an earlier church. The treasure was allocated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in 1965–1966 as Treasure Trove, following the case in the Court of Session Lord Advocate v. University of Aberdeen and is now held in the successor National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, whilst replicas…

]] The hoard consists of 28 silver and silver-gilt objects, dating to the second half of the eighth century. The objects can be grouped into categories relating to feasting, jewellery, and weaponry. There are twelve silver penannular brooches, eight silver bowls (one of which is a hanging bowl, one of only two known silver examples), one silver communion spoon, one silver knife, two silver chapes, one silver pommel, and three silver cones. The only non-silver item is a fragment of a porpoise jawbone. It is thought that some items were secular, such as the penannular brooches and different chapes from sword scabbards. Other pieces, including the bowls, spoon, and cones, may have been used in…