I love a visit to an exhibition and the local Art Gallery currently has two special exhibitions which I wanted to see. The first was The Book of Deer and the second The Galloway Hoard.
The Book of Deer is a small ilustrated Gospel manuscript and is considered one of Scotland’s greatest treasures. Written around the 10th century in Latin it also contains marginalia in Irish and Scots Gaelic from the 12th century. These notes, the oldest recorded gaelic known, refer to the now lost Deer Monastery where the book may have been written.
The book itself is small but nonetheless impressive. I recently saw the much bigger Book of Kells on a visit to Dublin but the diminutive size of the Book of Deer does not detract from its importance. However, the exhibition of the book is complimented by explanatory boards and other examples of marginalia in old record books of the city to add interest to the solitary exhibit.
One of the boards explained the apocryphal story of St Columba travelling through the North East of Scotland when he asked a local man to give some land for the building of a monastery. The man initially refused. The man’s son then fell ill and only after agreeing to give the land and a prayer from St Columba did the son regain his health. The monastery was built at Deer and the Book of Deer thus written.
Such stories may be intended to enlighten the masses to the holiness of saints who pray away disease and misfortune. I, on the other hand, could only wonder what the result would have been if it was a wee wandering woman who had asked for and been refused land and the local landowner’s son had fallen ill. Considered the opposite of holy, I will wager she would have been promptly burned as a witch.
The Book of Deer Exhibition has now closed but the project web page is still available at:
The other exhibition, The Galloway Hoard, is astonishing. The hoard itself is not huge as the name suggests (although the term ‘hoard’ means something slightly different in archeological speak) but has such extraordinary artifacts included within it which makes it such an important discovery. The hoard, which includes silver bullion and silver and gold jewellery, was buried around AD900. What is surprising and exciting is how far afield it shows the vikings travelled through Europe and Asia – the vessel containing the hoard is decorated with leopards and tigers not known in Scotland – and begs questions as to why it was buried in Galloway.
Furthermore, the textiles wrapping the hoard and the vessel containing them has survived and gives a new glimpse into the era which had previously been unknown. Silk, linen and leather rarely survive burial for so long but can begin to offer new insights into the Viking Age.
It is a truly amazing find and a great exhibition which continues at Aberdeen Art Gallery until Sunday 23rd October. The short films and explanatory boards which accompany the exhibition provide much information about the period in general and the hoard specifically.
One of the highlights for me was seeing the preservation and cleaning of the objects by the National Museum of Scotland. When I received careers advice at school we were told girls became nurses or teachers and boys became engineers and tradesmen. I wish I had been aware that preserving ancient artifacts was a possibility. I could have had a whole different life!
For more details on the hoard visit: https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/galloway-hoard/
Significantly Different 