The breadth of National Museums Scotland's collections, together with the support of The Glenmorangie Company, puts National Museums in a unique position to reveal the role of silver in the development of the first kingdoms of Scotland. It was silver, not gold, which was the most important and powerful precious metal in Scotland for over six hundred years and, as well as showcasing beautiful objects, the book builds on the Glenmorangie Research Project to gives fresh insights into this formative period of Scottish history. Based on the exhibition Scotland's Early Silver which was at the National Museum of Scotland and is now on tour.

Excavated from Traprain Law, East Lothian, Scotland, in May 1919, was one of the most spectacular discoveries of Roman silver ever made in Europe - and the biggest hoard of `hacksilver': 23kg, battered, crushed and chopped up. Blame for the destruction has hitherto been laid at the door of `barbarians' but this study changes that view. An international team of scholars has reviewed the hoard's origins and manufacture, its use as elite tableware, its hacking and later reuse. A century of new discoveries and ideas allow fresh conclusions, especially about the hacking. With wide-ranging parallels from across Europe, the authors argue that hacking was a deliberate Roman policy to create bullion at times of economic crisis, turning valued vessels into weights of silver to be used in frontier politics, to pay off groups from beyond the empire, or hire them as mercenaries