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'Celts' at the National Museum of Scotland

Two golden torcs unearthed by a metal-detecting enthusiast are among the treasures on display at a major new exhibition celebrating the Celts.

'Celts' at the National Museum of Scotland
A collection of Celtic art from all over Europe will go on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh from Thursday.

It is the first major British exhibition on the Celts for more than 40 years and was last held at the British Museum in London.

Exhibits include two Iron Age neck ornaments famously discovered by David Booth in a Stirlingshire field on his first outing with a metal detector. The former safari park keeper netted £460,000 for the 2000-year-old find.

Other highlights include a reconstruction of a chariot from a burial excavated at Newbridge, Edinburgh, in 2001, and on display for the first time. Dating from 475-400BC, it is Scotland's only known chariot burial and the oldest in Britain.

Dr Fraser Hunter, principal curator of Iron and Roman Age Collections, said: "This is a once in a lifetime chance to see masterpieces of Celtic art from all across Europe.

"These allow us to explore connections and differences across the Europe of 2000 years ago, to think about what the idea of Celts means and to see the power that this art gave to objects which people cherished."

Many of the 350 objects on show have never been seen in Scotland, notably the Gundestrup Cauldron, a huge silver vessel from the National Museum of Denmark.

Dr Martin Goldberg, a senior curator at National Museums Scotland, said: "This exhibition has given us great opportunities to look afresh at our own material through new research and presentation, to display some exciting new finds from across Scotland and to work with exceptional objects from other national and international collections.

"The resulting breadth, variety and quality of objects tell us fascinating, occasionally challenging things about Celts."

The exhibition runs until September 25.

Source: STV [March 13, 2016]