Scotland's story in 100 objects

[icymist]

SCOTLAND'S history is most often remembered as a dark drama etched out on a stunning landscape by the bloodstained battlefields of Mons Graupius, Bannockburn, Flodden, Culloden and many more. But there was another more constructive side to it, and the surprise is how much evidence of that has survived thousands years of murder, massacre and mayhem.

Scots were also among the pioneers in collecting and preserving materials to illustrate the progress of humanity that, by the time of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, they believed had taken place. They had themselves, after all, gone in a couple of generations from cutting throats in the Highlands and burning witches in the Lowlands to gracious living in the New Town of Edinburgh and mechanising labour at New Lanark. They wanted to mark the change and preserve the memory of it for future generations. This is why Scotland has some of the best museums and art galleries in the world.

1 The standing stones at Callanish date from perhaps 2000BC, not long after the start of human settlement in Scotland.

2 The Cramond Lioness symbolised imperial power at the Roman naval base in the Firth of Forth.

3 The Traprain Treasure, a hoard of late Roman silver, found in a Celtic fortress in East Lothian, dates from the final phase of contact with the Romans in the 5th century.
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