BURIED treasure worth more than £1 million will be on view during this winter’s Jorvik Viking Festival.

The Watlington Hoard will arrive at Jorvik on February 7, five days before the festival begins on February 12.

It is believed to have been buried in about AD879 by a member of the Great Viking Army during its manoeuvres in Oxfordshire and is among the most important hoards of its era found in Britain.

Unearthed in 2015, a public appeal and a National Lottery Grant enabled the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to buy it for £1.35 million.

It will be on display in Jorvik’s galleries from February 7 until May 21.

Director of attractions for York Archaeological Trust Sarah Maltby said: “This is a superb collection of Anglo-Saxon coins, jewellery and ingots, as well as Viking ‘hack’ silver.

“When we were redesigning the galleries, we worked with top experts including Gareth Williams from the British Museum to ensure that we could provide a showcase for this country’s most important Viking artefacts, and indeed, visitors to the festival can hear a special talk by Gareth on the hoard and its importance to our understanding of the Viking age.

“It is a real privilege that we can tell another part of Britain’s Viking story with the loan of this hoard,” added Sarah.

The hoard contains more than 200 complete Anglo-Saxon silver coins and a small number of cut fragments, two Kingdon of the Franks coins, seven items of jewellery including arm rings, 15 silver ingots and some cut fragments of jewellery, called “hack silver”.

The Great Viking Army captured York in AD866 and was eventually defeated by Alfred the Great at the Battle of Edington in Wessex in AD878.