Decision to relocate Viking hoard defended by museum director
A museum director has defended the decision to assign a 1,000-year-old Viking hoard unearthed in Dumfries and Galloway to Scotland’s national museum in Edinburgh.
Gordon Rintoul, director of National Museums Scotland (NMS), said only the capital had the expertise to restore and conserve the valuable 10th-century artefacts.
Earlier this month, the Queen’s and Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer (QLTR) – the body which rules on ownerless goods and property – decided the 100 or so items should be allocated to NMS, provided it raises the funds to pay £1.98 million to metal detectorist Derek Mclennan.
He discovered the hoard, which includes silver bracelets and brooches, an enamelled Christian cross and a bird-shaped gold pin, in a field in 2014.
A campaign has backed local council proposals for the treasure to have its permanent home in a specially-designed exhibition space at the new Kirkcudbright Art Gallery rather than in Edinburgh.
Mr Rintoul was pressed on the decision by South Scotland MSP Joan Mcalpine during a meeting of Holyrood’s culture committee.
He said: “The material is clearly of national and international importance, and that is one of our functions, to collect, preserve and make accessible material of that nature.
“Secondly, this particular hoard is going to require considerable expertise and resources to conserve it. A lot of it needs very skilled work over many years in fact. It also needs to have research work undertaken to reveal its full significance.
“All of that is going to require expertise and facilities, and in our view we are actually bestplaced to provide that.”
Mr Rintoul said NMS was in dialogue with Dumfries and Galloway Council about proposals to lend a “representative portion” of the hoard to the Kirkcudbright Art Gallery.
“Our plans are not that we somehow acquire and keep it all in Edinburgh, that’s not the case at all,” he said.
He conceded it was “impossible” to say at the moment what items that might involve, as significant conservation work was needed and it was unclear what material would be suitable for travel and display.