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Traprain Law is the site of an oppidum or hill fort, which covered at its maximum extent about 16 ha (40 acres). In the 1st century the Romans recorded the Votadini as a British tribe in the area, and Traprain Law is generally thought to have been one of their major settlements; named "Curia" by Ptolomy. 

 

In 1919, an archeological team discovered a hoard of silver plate. Consisting of over 53 pounds of sliced-up Roman era silver, the discovery was made in a pit within the boundary of the settlement earlier uncovered. Four coins were discovered with the hoard; one of the emperor Valens, three of Arcadius and one of Honorius, which dates the find to some point in the fifth century AD. The quality of some of the items suggests that they may have come from as far afield as Rome, Ravenna, or possibly Antioch or Constantinople. Most objects had been crushed and hacked to pieces, and only some were left intact. A great deal of the find was table silver, but there was also early Christian items and remnants from a Roman officer's uniform.

 

It had originally been thought that the objects had been brought back from a raid abroad, as the objects had been split up ready for division. Later finds such as at Mildenhall, Suffolk showed that silverware of this nature was certainly in use in Roman Britain. A further suggestion is that it had been brought back on a raid by the Votadini across Hadrian's Wall. Furthermore, it has also been suggested that the silver was in payment for Mercenary service to protect weaker tribes from the inroads of the Scots, Picts, and Saxons, the Silver being split up as bullion due to lack of adequate coinage¹.

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