Research reveals secret of who owned the Galloway Hoard

Ecgbeorht rune on silver arm-ring [Credit: National Museums Scotland]

Dr Adrian Maldonado, Glenmorangie Research Fellow at National Museums Scotland, said: "It’s really exciting to be able to reveal the first major research finding from the conservation of the Galloway Hoard, a message left by one of the individuals who deposited the hoard 1100 years ago.

We don’t know any more about Egbert than his name right now but there’s something really tantalising about connecting the Galloway Hoard with a named person. Egbert is a common Anglo-Saxon name, and with more research on the rest of the contents of the hoard, we will be able to narrow down its dating and suggest some candidates from the historical record."

"If the hoard belonged to a person or group of Anglo-Saxon speakers, does it mean they were out raiding with other Vikings? Or that these Viking hoards were not always the product of Scandinavian raiders? There are other explanations, but either way this transforms our thinking on the ‘Viking Age’ in Scotland."

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Man’s name found on the 1100 year-old Galloway Hoard

The Egbert Rune. © National Museum Scotland

Egbert was here! Name discovered and deciphered from a runic inscription on the spectacular Galloway Hoard

Perhaps more than anything else in the hypothesis-filled world of archaeology, burial hoards invite the most conjecture. What does they mean? Who buried them and why?

Archaeologists in Scotland are however a step closer to answering these questions after they discovered a message left by one of the people who may have deposited the Galloway Hoard 1100 years ago.

Described as one of the most significant Viking discoveries ever found in Britain and Ireland, the hoard consists of more than 100 gold and silver objects from the Viking age and was discovered on Church of Scotland land in Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway in September 2014.

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