A campaign has been launched to ensure a 1,000-year-old Viking hoard found buried in a Dumfries and Galloway field stays in the local area.
The objects were found inside a pot unearthed in 2014 and include rare items such as a gold bird-shaped pin, an enamelled Christian cross and silk from modern-day Istanbul as well as silver and crystal.
The items date from the ninth and 10th centuries and are part of a wider hoard of about 100 pieces, which experts say is the most important Viking discovery in Scotland for more than a century.
A campaign has been launched to ensure a 1,000-year-old Viking hoard, including this cross, found buried in a Dumfries and Galloway field stays in the local area
Campaigners have highlighted a growing trend for archaeological and cultural items to be exhibited locally rather than in capital cities.
This helps to boost cultural tourism and enrich a region’s ability to celebrate its own distinctive history.
The objects were found inside a pot unearthed in 2014 (pictured left) and include rare items such as a gold bird-shaped pin (pictured right), an enamelled Christian cross and silk from modern-day Istanbul as well as silver and crystal
The cross is engraved with decorations that, experts say, are highly unusual and may represent the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
GVH campaigner Cathy Agnew said: ‘Remarkable finds have so often been whisked away from the communities where they were discovered only to become a small feature in a large national museum.
‘This is a very old-fashioned approach and in 2017 we should be making sure that regions fully benefit from their cultural riches.
The cross was found amongst dozens of silver arm-rings and ingots around two feet below the surface
The haul was discovered in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland – although the exact location remains unknown