Scotland Defined

Discover how land and people became a kingdom.

"For we fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honour but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life.'

These still resounding words, from the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, are inscribed on the wall of the Scotland Defined gallery. The Declaration, an appeal for freedom in the face of conquest by the English, defined the nation of Scotland to the world.

Treasures of an emerging nation

Scotland contains objects linked to land, people, language, belief, kingsip and the emergence of the Kingdom of Scotland. It showcases some of our most precious objects: treasures that illustrate the emerging Scottish nation and the different peoples who became a part of it.

Peoples of Scotland

In this gallery you'll encounter the people who made up the Kingdom of the Scots. The Picts, the Angles, the Britons, the Scots, the Vikings and the Anglo-Normans are all here, represented by the monuments, jewellery, artworks and everyday objects they left behind.

Early Christianity

Near the sandstone cross-slab from Invergowrie in Angus, evidence of both Christian and pre-Christian Scotland, is the tiny Monymusk reliquary, one of the Museum's most important objects. Probably dating from the eighth century, it is linked with St Columba, a key figure in the spread of Christianity in Scotland, and with Robert the Bruce, the hero king who defeated an English army at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, although recent research has questioned this tradition and highlighted there is very little evidence to substantiate it.

Treasured objects

Pass under the stone arch from Forteviot in Perthshire and come face to face with an oak statue of St Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. From about the 13th century St Andrew and his cross, the saltire, have been symbols of the Scottish nation.

To your left is the Queen Mary harp, or clarsach, a superb example of medieval West Highland art. The harps is said to have been given by Mary, Queen of Scots, to Beatrix Gardyne of Banchory while on a hunting trip in Atholl.

Behind the harp are the famous Lewis chessmen. Found on the Hebridean island of Lewis in 1831, they are probably the most well-known archaeological find from Scotland.