Top Ten Treasures Named

Left: The Cramond lioness tucks into her prey.


© National Museum of Scotland.

You've watched Top of the Pops, but have you heard of the Top Ten Treasures lists?

Historians and archaeologists have chosen what they think are the top ten historical treasures found in Scotland and also the top ten treasures kept in The British Museum.

Treasure doesn't have to be made from gold and jewels to be precious.

Some of the top ten objects don't look valuable at all, but they are worth far more than money. They're valuable because they tell us about the way of life of the people who made them.

Left: What sound do you think this carnyx would make?

© National Museum of Scotland.

At number one on the Scottish list are some Neolithic axes that were discovered by drain diggers in 1881. They are made from chipped and polished stone, and are about 4000 years old.

In at number two and even older than the axes is a bow, which would have been used by a hunter in the Mesolithic period around 5-6000 years ago. The bog where the bow was found is called Rotten Bottom. Isn't that a great name for a bog?

Left: The Smerrick axes are as good as new.

© National Museum of Scotland.

Number three is a Viking Burial boat. Found in a sand dune on Sanday island, the boat contained the bodies of a man, woman and child along with many of their most precious belongings.

The Vikings, like the Egyptians, believed the dead needed to take things with them to use in the afterlife. You can see a decorated whalebone plaque from the boat at the Orkney Museum at Tankerness House in Kirkwall.

A carved Pictish stone made number four. Picts were people who lived in Scotland many thousands of years ago. The stone was found in the 17th century and was used as a gravestone before it was donated to the National Museum of Scotland in 1921.

Left: Some of the British Top Ten Treasures.






© The British Museum.

At number five in the Scottish top ten is the Cramond lioness. This stone lioness dates back to Roman times and probably stood guard over the tomb of important Roman. The statue had ended up at the bottom of the River Almond before being found sticking out of the mud by a boatman in 1996.

Other items on the list are the Lewis Chessmen, a Bronze Age hoard, or collection of objects, a Celtic Iron Age musical instrument called a Carnyx, a Bronze Age necklace and the Traprain Treasure, a collection of Roman coins.

Many of the Scottish treasures are now part of the National Museums of Scotland collection.

Left: The Rillaton Cup - now on show in the British Museum.

To take an online tour of the Top Ten British Museum Treasures online click on this link. These treasures were the stars of a BBC programme on January 1st 2003. All of the treasures are on show at The British Museum.

They include the Rillaton Bronze Age gold cup, the Vindolanda Tablets that are the oldest handwritten documents ever found in Britain and a beautiful Bronze Age cape from Mold in Wales.