The research will involve precise dating of the items and hopefully the identification of their places of origin, which are thought to range from Ireland to the Byzantine empire and perhaps beyond.

Members of the public will be able to see the Galloway Hoard at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh from February 19 to May 9 as part of a new exhibition.

The Galloway Hoard, which was found in 2014, contains arm rings, silver bracelets and brooches, a gold ring, an enamelled Christian cross and a bird-shaped gold pin

After leaving Edinburgh, it will then tour Kirkcudbright Galleries and Aberdeen Art Gallery later in the year.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a £791,293 grant for the project to analyse the objects in greater detail, with the rest of the £1 million grant being covered by NMS and the University of Glasgow.

The project will hope to uncover more detail around the circumstances of how and why the hoard was buried.

‘That is part of the reason for the research grant – it is only through a forensic analysis of every element of the Hoard that we will get closer to understanding the circumstances of how the hoard got there,’ said Martin Goldberg, principal curator of medieval archaeology and history at NMS and lead investigator on the project.

The Galloway Hoard was ‘quite carefully’ buried in layers, according to NMS, but this new project will also ‘get beyond just the day of burial and look at the longer histories of the objects’.

‘Most hoards are usually interpreted as buried wealth, with the focus on events surrounding the moment of burial,’ said Goldberg.

‘The Galloway Hoard challenges this view and presents a rare opportunity to ask in much more detail about how, and why, people assembled and collected hoards during the Viking age.

‘We’ve already discovered a great deal through the conservation work, and people will be able to see that in the forthcoming exhibition.

‘However, this research project will enable us to go much further using scientific techniques and international collaboration.’

A unique gold bird-shaped pin, restored and stunningly presented in a new image from National Museums Scotland. Following the tour part of the Galloway Hoard will be on long-term display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh with a significant and representative portion of the Hoard also displayed long-term at Kirkcudbright Galleries

Four annular silver ribbon bracelet arm rings from the Viking age Galloway Hoard, which, along with other treasures from the Viking age, will feature in The Galloway Hoard: Viking-age Treasure exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland next year

It is possible the Galloway hoard may have been deposited by a people who considered themselves part of the English-speaking world and may have been locals.

Galloway had been part of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria since the early 8th century, and was referred to as the ‘Saxon coast’ in the Irish chronicles as late as the 10th century.

One of the most exciting objects in the hoard is a silver Anglo-Saxon cross, decorated in Late Anglo-Saxon style using black niello and gold-leaf, which is revealed in new detail in National Museums Scotland photographs.

Previously encrusted in a millennium’s worth of dirt, months of painstaking cleaning and conservation work has revealed an intricately decorated silver cross, allowing scholars to view this detail for the first time before it is put on the public display.

In each of the four arms of the cross are the symbols of the four evangelists who wrote the Gospels of the New Testament, Saint Matthew, Mark (Lion), Luke (Cow) and John (Eagle).

Also included is a elongated gold pendant and a decorated silver-gilt vessel, the only complete lidded vessel of its type ever discovered in Britain and Ireland.

A Carolingian vessel was part of the hoard, and some of the buried treasure was found inside the pot. Someone had wrapped the vessel in fabric before burial and the scan suggests that its contents had also been wrapped in organic matter, possibly leather, before being stored inside it

An elongated gold pendant from the Viking age Galloway Hoard, which was found by an amateur metal detectorist, Derek McLennan, in Dumfries and Galloway in 2014

New images reveal the stunning detail of an Anglo-Saxon cross buried for over a thousand years as part of the Galloway Hoard

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