1990 153, ciekawe y

James Curle of Melrose and His Collection
of Gotlandic Antiquities
By Dafydd Kidd and Lena Thunmark-Nylén*
Kidd, D. & Thunmark-Nylén, L. 1990. James Curle of Melrose and his collec-
tion of Gotlandic antiquities. Fornvännen 85. Stockholm.
The Gotlandic collection made by James Curle of Melrose, Scotland
(1862-1944) is the most oulstanding collection of låter Iron Age antiquities to
have left Seandinavia. It was acquired by the British Museum in 1921, and is to
be published in Summary Catalogue form in the near future. Its originalor was
a Scottish Lawyer and amateur archaeologisl who established an international
repulalion wilh work in the Romano-Brilish field. He collected actively between
1888-1903 when he frequently visited Stockholm and Visby. The artide exam-
ines the problems of establishing provenances and find-history for some of his
piéces, and explores the extent of his friendship wilh Swedish archaeologists.
Anecdotes are related in the hope that associated names and dales may be
familiar to Swedish researchers. The antiquities dealers Florin and Lysholm
were known to Curle, but their relationships are obscure. Curle's colleclion
activities must be seen in the context of Gotlandic antiquarian research at the
time, and lhe island's relations with the Slockholm authorities. Despite wide-
reaching enquiries, concrete scientific data about this important collection
remains small, but this presentation may stimulate further archival research and
source analysis of material in Sweden.
Dafydd Kidd, The British Museum, London WC IB 3DG, Great Britain. Lena Thun-
mark-Nylén, Statens Historiska Museum, Box 5405, S-114 84 Stockholm, Sweden.
In July 1921 the Trustees of the British Muse- acquisition of the collection is in 1991, so it
um, aided by a very substantial grant from the seems appropriate now to review some of the
National Arts-Collection Fund, sanctioned research problems surrounding the material,
the purchase of the most important collection These form two inter-related complexes:
of Nordic Iron Age objects outside Scandina- there are the internal difficulties that result
via. It was the collection of Gotlandic antiqui- from poor primary documentation, and there
ties formed between 1888 and 1903 by James are the external relationships of the collection
Curle of Melrose in the southern Lowlands of to the history and development of antiquarian
Scotland (Fig. 1). In 1928 Nils Lithberg pub- research on Gotland. Both aspects have been
lished an extensively illustrated artide in actively researched in London, Edinburgh,
Fornvännen listing the most significant pieccs Stockholm and Visby, preparatory to a com-
in the collection which he had seen on display plete summary publication of the material by
in the Museum (Lithberg 1928). Although the British Museum as part of a major pro-
some 20 objects from the collection had been gramme of historical research into its Europe-
illustrated and others mentioned in the 1923 an archaeological collections (Kidd & Haith,
Guide to the early Medieval collections (Smith forthcoming; the background is summarised
1923), the remainder had remained largely in Kidd 1989). In tbc course of such work
unpublished and very few had been recorded more questions are raised than definitive an-
by the ATA in Stockholm. The 60th anniversa- swers provided.
ry of Lithberg's pioneering publication oc- James Curle was born in 1862 at Melrose,
curred in 1988 and the 70th anniversary of the eldest of three brothers and four sisters.
11 - 908643
Fornvännen 85 (1990)
154
D. Kidd & L. Thunmark-Nylén
Fig. 1. Photographs of James Curle in his early
years are rare. This is one said to be of him in 1890.
He wrote on 8 November 1936 to Richard Steffen
in Visby "I hope all this long account of my 'plund-
ringar' won't weary you. I suppose if I hadn't
bought lhe things they might have drifted away and
been löst sighl of but I always intended that they
would evenlually go to lhe British Museum where
they are available for comparative study." —Foto-
grafier av James Curle i unga år är sällsynta. Detta
sägs vara taget 1890.
before being received into the family business
at Melrose he was sent to travel with our unde
Robert Anderson, a very knowledgeable tour-
ist for several months in Italy ... This tour, I
believe, laid the foundations of firm scholarly
reading and interest in art ... Our parents
had yearly taken their holiday travelling on
the Continent and Jim after his great experi-
ence in Italy had always the urge to go
abroad."
With this cultivated European background
it is not surprising thai James's local archaeo-
logical studies took a broad view. His most
famous archaeological investigation was that
of the Roman fort at Newstead from 1905,
and his model publication of it in 1911 estab-
lished his reputation internationally (Curle
1911). What characterised the report, and
what was new to Scottish archaeology (al-
though preluded by his own earlier work in
the 1890s), were the extensive and detailed
comparative studies from both the scientific
literature and his own foreign travels in
France and Germany undertaken by Curle.
His use of expert advisers, his innovative con-
servation techniques and his taking advice on
details from other scholars such as Charles
Hercules Read and Reginald Smith of the
British Museum, all extended the scope of
what he could achieve alone. While his broth-
er Alexander was a professional antiquary,
becoming director of the National Museum of
Antiquities in 1913, then in 1916 of the Royal
Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh, James
remained the perhaps reluclant head of a
busy legal practice and deeply involved in lo-
cal affairs in Melrose. In 1925 he was invited
to become a Royal Commissioner for Histori-
cal Monuments in recognition of bis antiquar-
ian work. He was a Doctor of Letters at Aber-
deen University and a Fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries in both London and Edinburgh.
He died on 1st March 1944 at Melrose, a few
days before his 82nd birthday. An obituary by
lan Ricbmond, who knew him personally and
was himself destined to be a great Romano-
British scholar, paints the picture of an active
and humorous man of great learning and
modesty (Ricbmond 1944).
It is not clear now what lay behind James's
His antiquarian training began early as his
brother Alexander records.
1
"Our father
though one could hardly term him an Anti-
quary yet possessed a great interest in the
subject and when he had a day in Edinburgh
rardy failed to spend some time of it in con-
versation with Dr Joseph Anderson then the
distinguished Curator of the National Mu-
seum of Antiquities ... As we boys had often,
rather unwillingly, to take part in such visits
we grew up with an clemcntaiy knowledge of
the bases of modern archaeology which in
consequence we never required to learn. We
had in fact absorbed it among the Museum
cases in those early days of our lives." James
trained as a lawyer and was destined to enter
the family firm of Curle and Erskine. But "...
Fornvännen «5 (1990)
OO
Fig. 2. Two late Viking gold finger-rings. "I found
in a small goldsinith's shop a gold finger-ring,
lorque-shaped, which was said to have been found
at Smiss in Eke (left, no. 374). In his shop he had
a box of much rubbed Roman denarii and one or
two small penannular brooches. I bought the gold
ring (1888) and that was the beginning." —Två sen-
vikingatida fingerringar av guld. "I en lilen guld-
smedsaffär hittade jag en torque-formad guld-
fingerring, som man sade hade hittats vid Smiss i
Eke (t. v., nr 374). I affären hade han en låda med
myckel slitna romerska denarer och etl eller två små
ringspännen. Jag köpte guldringen (1888) och del
blev början."
155
deep interest in Gotland and its antiquities
because no explanation by him survives. A
hint may be given in Alexander's Journal. "He
possessed a great desire to visit Seandinavia
and ... he paid his first visit to Sweden [in
1888] with [brother] Andy and me joined on,
as our father always seemed to think that such
family grouping was desirable ... It was not
the happiest of combinations. Jim in his re-
search for knowledge and in interviews with
Museum directors actually did not appreciate
being furnished with a somewhat unintelligent
tail." Family tradition records that the broth-
ers had wanted instead to visit Paris, but their
mother saw such a potential for young mis-
chief that Sweden with its reformed religion
and more sedate atmosphere was chosen in-
stead. "On this occasion Jim and the party
paid their first visit to Wisby in the Island of
Gotland, and there made the acquaintance of
Capt. Lindström, a retired Militia Officer,
who awaited the arrival of the steamer from
Stockholm in order that he might attach him-
self to any chance Englishman or American
tourist and act as a guide." This was the begin-
ning of a long friendship. "Jim in this visit
found a wealth of relics in the watchmakers or
silversmiths sbops, and through the instru-
mentality of the Mayor formed the basis of the
remarkable collection of Viking relics he
amassed ovcr a number of years." (Fig. 2.)
Låter documents record that the beauty of
Gotland impressed the brothers, and perhaps
this too drew James back to Sweden six times
more between 1889 and 1903 although he
also travelled elsewhere, such as to Berlin, the
Auvergne and America, during the period. Of
the importance of his collection to him there
is no doubt: "James ... loved fine books and
beside his Gotland relics books were his chief
hobby."
James Curle's collection, now in the British
Museum, consists largely of jewellery and cos-
lume accessories and contains almost 400 in-
dividually registered pieccs and small groups.
There ara some 17 Bronze-age and early Iron-
age objects induding a bronze sword from
Denmark; 12 of the Roman Iron Age; 30 of
the Migration period; about 100 of the Ven-
del period induding the outstanding decora-
tive terminal of a shield-grip (Fig. 3); and
about 200 Viking-period objects induding an
unusual horse-reins guide (Fig. 4); and 20 Me-
dieval items induding a group of bone gaming
pieccs. Not all his coins came to the Museum,
but when originally listed they included 12
Roman silver denarii, 12 gold solidi of late
Roman and Byzantine origin, with more than
30 Arab dirhams, 60 Anglo-Saxon or German
pennies and 2 Byzantine silver coins all of the
Viking period.
Enquiries in 1988 revealed that a number
of objects collected by James Curle remained
in family possession. These include some 10
piéces of Bronze-age metalwork from north-
ern Europé, and some 70 stone and flint arte-
facts of the Stone and Bronze Ages from
Seandinavia (Fig. 5) and other places. There
are several ethnographie specimens, and a Pa-
laeolithic handaxe among some provenanced
British items. They have never been referred
to in print and their discovery sheds new light
on the range and scope of James Curle's inter-
ests. This important part of his collection is
now being catalogued in the Department of
Archaeology in the Royal Museum of Scot-
land, Edinburgh, by kind permission of their
present owner."' Among these objects was a
12th-century Viking copper-alloy mount, of a
Fornvännen Ä5 (1990)
J. Curle 's collection of Gotlandic Antiquities
156
D. Kidd åf L. Thunmark-Nylén
Fig. 3. Cast copper-alloy mount from the end of a
Vendel-period shield-grip (no. 234). L: 5.5 cm.
— Gjutet beslag av kopparlegering frän änden pä ett
vendeltida sköldhandtag. (Foto: British Museum.)
Fig. 4. Cast copper-alloy openwork reins guide de-
corated in Viking Borre style (no. 282). L: 13.1 cm.
— Genombrutet selbagskrön av kopparlegering med
ornamentik i Borrestil. (Foto: British Museum.)
type usually referred to as a 'dub head' al-
though some scholars consider it to be the
terminal from the grip of a boat's tiller (Fig.
6).
4
It has been generously presented to the
Trustees of the British Museum by Mrs Bar-
bara Linehan, James Curle's daughter (MLA
1989, 9-3,1).
About half the Iron-age objects have prove-
nances in 35 different parishes on Gotland or
were bought in Visby, and the bulk of material
without provenance is of Gotlandic type. Be-
yond the island 2 gold bracteates come from
Förslöv in Skåne; there is a cruciform brooch
from Stångebro in Östergötland; and 3
brooches have an Uppland provenance.
A 6th-century copper-alloy square-headed
Fig. 5. Stone artefacts
wilh provenances in
Sweden. Max. L. 21
cm. (Copyright: Royal
Museum of Scot-
land.) — Föremål från
stenåldern påträffade i
Sverige.
Fornvännen 85 (1990)
J. Curle's collection of Gotlandic Antiquities
157
brooch from Västergötland is known only
from a reference made to it in 1904 by Salin
(Salin 1904, p. 61, fig. 130, p. 366, no. 130).
It did not come to the British museum and its
present whereabouts are unknown. Curle
himself never excavated in Sweden, and he
clearly realised the problems of relying on the
word of middlemen, themselves often dealing
with uneducated labourers. "Although I tried
to get the names of the places the things came
from we cannot be certain that they are cor-
rect ... all the findspots I had I passed on to
the British Museum ... I suspect in no case
did I get more than the name of the parish."
The nature of his sources must cast doubt in
principle on the integrity of alleged closed
groups. There are about a dozen such, rang-
ing from objects "found together" or said to
have come from one grave, to several groups
of hack-silver which were mounted together
on blocks but about which nothing else is now
known concerning their original find-circum-
stances. A Viking silver hoard said to have
come from Dalhem seems internally consist-
ent (Fig. 7), as do several minor grave groups
containing accessories, pins and brooches.
But an unusual grave group from Kopparsvik
which is said to have included a silver armlet
of hexagonal section cannot be verified. Four
others from the site vary in their degree of
credibility.
While direct evidence about the accumula-
tion of the collection is lacking, invaluable
information comes from letters such as the
correspondence with Charles Hercules Read
of the British Museum. Those examples which
survive from the 1890s give anecdotal details
of some of the more interesting additions to
his collection, and give the dates of and shed
circumstantial light on his trips to Sweden.
But Curle kept details of his sources and how
he acquired his objects quite secret. His
changing tones ovcr the years reveal the atti-
tudes of a true collector. There was the disap-
pointed: "I haven't got very much since I saw
you last" of May 1897, and the more satisfied:
"I got one or two good brooches in Stock-
holm last summer [1896] especially good—
silver of the Teutonic type." In May 1898 he
wrote exultantly of "one of my latest acquisi-
Fig. 6. Cast copper-alloy 'mace-head'. Late Viking.
L: 7.3 cm. (Copyright: Royal Museum of Scot-
land.)—Gjutet s.k. "klubbhuvud" av kopparlege-
ring. Sen vikingalid.
dons which I think you will rather covet. The
original being in high relief is much more
effective than the drawing." (Fig. 8.) While in
November 1891 he had said of his outstand-
ing glass vessel (Fig. 9): "Not as fine as your
Taplow beaker once was [a famous Anglo-
Saxon find] but mine has the advantage of
being perfect. They are very scarce in any
condition I fancy." Perhaps Read was not al-
ways a responsive audience for in May 1894
Curle writes; "I hope to hear from you some
day soon if you have not abandoned the cus-
tom of writing letters." He was generous,
however, and in 1892 he presented the British
Museum with eight copper-alloy brooches
mainly from Burs, of typical Gotlandic Viking
Age type. The Museum clearly kept an eye on
Curle's acquisitions with the idea of låter add-
ing them to the national collection. In 1902
Curle's material may have been in some disor-
der for he writes to Read in September of that
year about the work of one of his department-
al clerks on leave from the Museum. "Mr
Henry Oldland has finished his work on my
Fornvännen 85 (1990)

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