Connecting with the past by Lee Randall

Last weekend I went to the museum to commune with my object, The Darien Chest. Stubbornly refusing to pick up a gallery map, I went the long way around, wandering through room after room of relics, worrying as I so often do at airports and crowded parties, whether I’d recognise my quarry, even though I had a much-referenced picture of the chest stashed in my handbag.

Eventually I found it, looking exactly like itself. A pair of American tourists paced back and forth in front of it, examining it carefully. I approached warily, eavesdropping in the hope of hearing something quirky in their reactions. (At times such as these I keep shtum, fearful that my own still-American vowels will prompt confusion, because that makes me defensive – unbidden, I launch into a laboured explanation about how I actually live here, and Edinburgh’s home. These monologues leave me feeling like a pedantic prat, yet I cannot cure myself of them.)

Seeing them there, I felt a swell of pride: Hey! People are admiring my object! MY object! They were especially interested in the intricate lock, whose mechanism covers the entire underside of the chest’s cover. I circled them, affecting nonchalance but vibrating inside. I read the curator’s label. I looked over and wondered (all right, sneered), “Do you have any idea of this chest’s significance? Do you want me to tell you?” This, despite my own very limited knowledge, because I’d decided to meet the Darien Chest before googling the hell out of it. This, simply because someone decided it was “mine.”

The lock they – and I, and a swarm of blue-blazered schoolboys arriving later – so admired is a marvel of technology and aesthetics. A Heath Robinson affair (or Rube Goldberg, I might have said to the Americans), it’s a montage of swirling strips of iron, which mesh or push past one another to activate the intricate mechanism. They terminate in carved arrows, while tiny, unnecessary flowers cover the heads of bolts or joins. Someone with an eye for beauty took time crafting this object. Someone proud to win the commission for such an important treasure chest. Someone, perhaps, who believed it stood for Scotland’s brave new future, who unlocked his own, smaller casket to retrieve coins to the worth of £5, to invest in the Company of Scotland.

I misbehaved during my visit. During a summer internship at the Cloisters museum, many years back, I learned that there are two mortal sins of museum-going: walking backwards and touching the exhibits. I knew that, and I touched the chest anyway, to understand how cold and hard and enduring it was. Then, making certain no one was looking, I leaned down and inhaled, pulling the stench of iron – so like blood – right into my lungs. I very nearly crawled into the chest. It looked roughly the right size to accommodate someone bent double.  

The allure of history has been with me, always. As a kid I wondered about everyone who’d gone before, never speculating forward, about rocket ships or life on Mars. I was immediately attracted to the concept behind 26 Treasures, because while the facts and figures comprising human history are compelling, I’ve always been amazed at how universal and unchanged are the complex emotions linking people of every nation, and throughout millennia. Thus, armed with a bit of imagination and information, it’s tremendously tempting to slip into someone else’s skin and feel the world as it once was.  

Leaving the museum with the ferrous tang of the Darien Chest clinging to my fingers, I did a bit more research. I don’t want to become an expert; I don’t want to research the emotion right out of this experience. But I did want to probe the scar a while, and think about what the Darien Scheme might have meant to Scots in its time. (And oh, how bitterly I laughed when I learned that the payout of Equivalent Money eventually led to the creation of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which has wreaked havoc anew on the Scottish economy.)

I have probably walked past this chest dozens of times before, and have certainly skimmed articles about the scheme in the past. But this time was different. This time I had a connection. It was vital to stop and pay attention — because this time it was personal. So here’s an idea: Why not assign every school kid an object from one of Scotland’s museums at the start of the academic term? Give them a couple of assignments, spaced throughout the year. Perhaps they could draw their object, deliver a ten minute presentation about the story of their object, or capture the essence of their object in just 62 words? There’s nothing like making a connection to fire up the imagination.