Words that are, shall we say, unconventionally spelled may unlock new secrets.
The Galloway Hoard is one of the most significant—and mysterious—Viking-era treasures ever to emerge in Scotland. Discovered buried in 2014 in Balmaghie by retiree Derek McLennan using a metal detector, it now resides at the Kirkcudbright Galleries, named for the county in southwest Scotland where it was found. It includes objects such as armbands, brooches, and ingots, all of it stored in a silver vessel.
It is unknown why the hoard was buried in the first place, but those who interred it definitely wanted it to stay there: the diggers found some valuables but then discovered that they lay on a bed of gravel which may have served as a decoy; when dug up, it yielded a much larger store of treasures. The trove totals 11 pounds of silver, making it the largest deposit of Viking silver found in the country since the nearly 18 pounds found at Skaill, Orkney in 1867. One of the mysterious aspects of the find: along with the treasures are actual balls of dirt, carefully wrapped.
So, dirt balls aside, who owned it? Based on the fact that it includes four arm rings inscribed with Anglo-Saxon runes, it may have been the property of four parties. According to one reading, the inscriptions feature Old English name elements (Eggbrect, Ed, Til, and Bera). But per National Museums Scotland, which acquired the hoard in 2017, just three feature names, and the fourth has long remained undeciphered.
Now, there’s a new interpretation by a team of experts at National Museums that suggests communal ownership of the stash. It’s the result of a three-year research project, Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard, which was supported by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), led by National Museums in partnership with the University of Glasgow.
The inscription in question reads “DIS IS ЇIGNA ˑFˑ”. The word ЇIGNAF, as it was long read, didn’t correspond to any language spoken in early medieval Britain or Ireland, leaving researchers stumped. But if the final “F” is read as “ˑFˑ,” marked out with dots, it could be interpreted to mean “feoh,” meaning wealth or property, and ”ЇIGNA” could be read as an unconventional or erroneous spelling of the Old English word “higna,” or community. If “DIS” is read as the word “this” (another possible misspelling, or a transcription of the way the word was pronounced in the region), then the whole could be read as “this is the community’s wealth/property.”
“This is a difficult and unusual inscription, and the proposed translation is challenging,” said University of Wales runologist David Parsons in press materials. “There are a number of things which are technically ‘wrong’ when we compare it with what we know about ‘correct’ runic writing. However, if we think about both spoken and written English today, there are a huge range of regional and idiomatic variations and, if we allow for this, then it becomes possible to accept this as a plausible reading. And in the context of what can deduce about the Galloway Hoard, it becomes really quite compelling.”
So, to all the proofreaders out there, remember: your work is important!
“Treasures of the Viking Age: The Galloway Hoard” is on view at the South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, Australia, through July 27.
This article was originally published in Artnet on February 21, 2025.
