iNational Museum of ScotlandOld Town
Scotland's First Warriors
Over 200 objects trace conflict in prehistoric Scotland from the Neolithic to Rome, including six Bronze Age shields and the richest Iron Age warrior burial yet found.
More in Edinburgh
In a chambered cairn at Tulloch of Assery in Caithness, someone was buried with a flint arrowhead lodged in their backbone. The vertebra is here, and the curators admit they can't say whether it was a hunting accident or an attack. That honesty runs through the whole show.
More than 200 objects run roughly in order from the Neolithic to the Roman conquest, with the most room given to the Bronze Age. You start with stone maceheads that were tools before they were weapons and end with swords made for nothing but fighting people. Four of Scotland's six surviving bronze shields are here, and they carry damage from real use. Six faceless figures by the artist Alan McGowan, each about 1.8m tall, stand among the cases, and films of re-enactors show the weapons in motion.
Current Archaeology and The Past both stress the curators' aim: the people behind the fighting, not a parade of better blades. Entry is free, on Chambers Street until 16 May 2027.
Editor's pick
Over 200 objects on conflict in prehistoric Scotland, from the Neolithic to Rome, including six Bronze Age shields and the richest Iron Age warrior burial yet found.
Look for
The Tulloch of Assery vertebra
Look for a Neolithic human backbone from a Caithness cairn with a flint arrowhead still stuck in it.
The Yetholm-type shields
Thin bronze discs hammered from a single ingot, covered in concentric ribs and rows of thousands of tiny hand-made bosses, made around 1300 to 1100 BC.
The Beith shield
The one survivor of five or six shields found laid in a ring in Ayrshire around 1779, lent from London and back in Scotland for the first time in over 200 years.
The Carnoustie Hoard sword
A bronze sword still in its wooden scabbard, once swaddled in woollen cloth and fastened with a disc-headed pin, beside a spearhead decorated with gold foil.
The Marshill warrior
From the richest Iron Age burial found in Scotland: a young man's iron sword in its leather scabbard, his spear, cloak pin and two bronze toe rings, with forged replicas alongside.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Also at National Museum of Scotland
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- Scotland's First WarriorsNational Museums Scotland
- The Rupture: No condition is permanentCourtesy the artist. © Kiri Dalena
- Blood and Guts: The Twists and Turns of Edinburgh's Medical HistorySurgeons' Hall Museums
- Elizabeth Blackadder: A Life in ColourCourtesy of Dovecot Studios
- National Museum of ScotlandMaccoinnich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Talbot Rice GalleryVysotsky / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Surgeons' Hall MuseumsRConnor21 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dovecot StudiosMike Wilkinson, CC BY-SA 3.0
- The Writers' MuseumStefan Schäfer, Lich (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA 3.0