Articles about the Scheme in the Guardian
Evidence for unknown Viking king Airdeconut found in Lancashire
Evidence of a previously unknown Viking king has been discovered in a hoard of silver found by a metal detectorist, stashed in a lead box in a field in Lancashire.The 201 pieces of silver including beautiful arm rings, worn by Viking warriors, were found on the outskirts of Silverdale, a village near the coast in north Lancashire, by Darren Webster, using the metal detector his wife gave him as a Christmas present. It adds up to more than 1kg of silver, probably stashed for safe keeping around AD900 at a time of wars and power struggles among the Vikings of northern England, and never recovered.Airdeconut – thought to be the Anglo Saxon coin maker's struggle to get to grips with the Viking name Harthacnut – was found on one of the coins in the hoard.The Airdeconut coin also reveals that within a generation of the Vikings starting to colonise permanent settlements in Britain in the 870s – instead of coming as summer raiders – their kings had allied th...
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Badge dug up in field is medieval treasure
A scrap of twisted silver found a few weeks ago by a metal detector in Lancashire will take its place among masterpieces of medieval art at the British Museum, in an exhibition opening this week of the bejewelled shrines made to hold the relics of saints and martyrs.The badge made of silver found by Paul King, a retired logistics expert, is a humble object to earn a place in an exhibition called Treasures of Heaven, but it is unique. It will sit among gold and silver reliquaries studded with gems the size of thumbnails – or the sockets from which they were wrenched by thieves – once owned by emperors, popes and princes.The badge, the only one of its kind ever found in Britain, provides a link 500 years ago between this corner of rural Lancashire and the great pilgrimage sites of mainland Europe. It shows one of the companions of St Ursula, one of the most popular mystical legends of medieval Europe. She was said to be a British princess who sailed with 11,000 vi...
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Warriors wielding metal detectors redraw ancient maps of England
Amateurs using metal detectors have found record amounts of golden treasure and priceless scraps of history across England, according to an annual report from the British Museum.All the items were reported to archaeologists under a scheme which the museum's director, Neil MacGregor, called "quite unique in Europe".MacGregor recently presented the successful Radio 4 series, A History of the World in 100 Objects.The report shows that 2010 was an exceptional year, with 859 treasure discoveries (up by 10%) and 90,146 other finds (up 36%).The finds are helping draw new maps of invasion, settlement, trade and warfare across thousands of years of English history.All were reported through the treasure and portable antiquities schemes b...
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Geoff Egan obituary
Geoff Egan, who has died of coronary thrombosis aged 59, was the leading UK expert in medieval and later small finds, and pioneered liaison between archaeologists and the "mudlarks" who search for finds on the Thames foreshore. Digging in thick mud against the tide, mudlarks have retrieved a fascinating trove of metal artefacts left by generations of Londoners on the riverbanks.Mudlarks were once shunned by many professional archaeologists, who deplored what they saw as their unscientific methods of retrieval, but many developed great expertise and some, such as Tony Pilson, donated their collections to the Museum of London and the British Museum.Geoff had done some mudlarking himself before he became a professional archaeologist. Together with his colleague Hazel Forsyth, in 2005 he published Toys, Trifles and Trinkets, detailing Pilson's collection. This pioneering work studied a class of artefact (children's metal toys made betw...
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Elaine Paintin obituary
Into a life cut short by a heart attack at the age of 63, Elaine Paintin packed three quite different phases of activity, as arts administrator, civil servant at the Department of National Heritage, and director of the Marc Fitch Fund. In each role she achieved a great deal that will be of lasting value for the arts, archaeology and local history of Britain. The second phase was the shortest of all: her secondment as civil servant with responsibility for drafting and getting through parliament the Treasure Act 1996. This major extension of the ancient law of treasure trove has resulted in the saving for the public of hundreds of buried antiquities.Elaine was born and brought up in Oxford, where her father, Leslie, worked in the council's planning department. She would have been the first to declare her debt to her teachers at Milham Ford school in Oxford. At that stage, too, she began an intermittent political involvement, as secretary of the Oxford Young Liberals and...
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Why Frome is still cashing in on the Romans
Dave Crisp found treasure on a soggy ridge outside the Somerset town of Frome last April, and helped rewrite history. On a bitter winter afternoon, as he walks the frosty field again, he recalls one of the most heart-stoppingly exciting moments of his life. The 63-year-old ex-army man had discovered a scattering of Roman silver coins in the field. He came back a few days later with his detector, bought secondhand on eBay, to round up any remaining broken pieces. The signals were faint and confusing."I picked out a piece of Roman pottery, and when I turned it over there was a coin, a bronze radiate, stuck in it. When I turned over the next handful of clay, it was stuffed with coins — 20 at least. I just sat back on my heels and shouted: 'I've done it!'. I knew at once I'd found a Roman coin hoard in its undisturbed container — I knew the archaeologists would wet themselves."
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British Museum takeover safeguards buried treasure agencies as quango goes
The agencies that handle archaeological finds, many from amateurs with metal detectors, will become part of the British Museum, their future assured as the government dismantles the Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA) quango.The fate of the treasure and portable antiquities schemes was disclosed as they today report their annual audit of finds, another rich haul of gold coins, silver goblets, a 3,000-year-old bracelet found by a man clearing stones in a field in northern Ireland and a 400-year-old toy coach which came out of the mud of the Thames foreshore.However the two schemes, which maintain a national network of finds officers, will lose 15% of their £1.4m budget over the next four years, like the British Museum itself.Culture minister Ed Vaizey also said, as he launched the latest Treasure report which covers 806 reported finds in 2008, that the MLA responsibility for regional museums and libraries will be transferred as anticipated to the Arts Coun...
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Roman helmet sold for £2m
In just three minutes at a Christie's auction, the most hauntingly beautiful face to emerge from the British soil in more than a century slid out of the grasp of the museum desperate to acquire it when the Roman helmet was sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for £2m [see footnote] – dramatically higher than the highest pre-sale estimate of £300,000.The man who found it last May, using a metal detector on farmland on the outskirts of the Cumbrian hamlet of Crosby Garrett, a currently unemployed graduate in his early 20s from the north-east, will share the price with the landowner, but is now a millionaire.Tullie House museum in Carlisle managed to stay in the bidding up to £1.7m, a staggering sum for a small museum raised in gifts and grant promises through frantic fundraising in the last month. Three more bids of £100,000 each lost it the treasure."I'm still shaking," Andrew Mackay, senio...
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Campaign to keep Roman cavalry helmet in Cumbria given boost
An anonymous benefactor has offered £50,000 to help keep a stunning Roman cavalry helmet discovered with a metal detector near the village of Crosby Garrett in Cumbria within the county.The donation is a major boost to the fundraising campaign by Tullie House museum in Carlisle, a small museum within yards of Hadrian's Wall which has a major Roman collection.Members of the public have donated £32,000 and the museum is racing to raise enough money to bid for the artefact at a Christie's auction next month.The helmet, modelled as the head of a handsome youth wearing a Phrygian cap, in bronze with a tinned face which would originally have shone like silver, is the most spectacular find of its kind in more than a centur...
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Roman cavalry helmet found with metal detector may go abroad at auction
A stunning Roman cavalry helmet, made to awe the spectators in a procession of wealth and power rather than for practical use in combat, has been found by a metal detector user near the village of Crosby Garrett in Cumbria.However, the artefact is not certain to end up in a local museum as single items of bronze are not covered by the Treasure Act.Instead the helmet, the best found in Britain in more than a century, is likely to make its finder rich at auction, with a guide price at Christie's of £300,000.Tullie House in Carlisle, which has an important Roman collection, is desperate to acquire the helmet with the backing of the British Museum, but faces an uphill battle to match bidders at next month's sale. One expert believes the helmet could go for £500,000 or more.The bronze helmet, which was originally tinned so it would have shone like silver, is modelled as the head of a handsome young man with curly hair, wearing a Phrygian cap - later adopt...
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Medieval roof finial found beside Thames
A scrap of muddy terracotta found on a bank of the Thames has provided a rare glimpse of the grandeur of medieval London before the Great Fire.The roof finial, up to 800 years old and in the shape of an animal, would have decorated a grand tiled roof at a time when most people lived under thatch. It was found by a mudlark – one of the small army of amateur archaeologists who scour the beaches and mudflats of the river at low tide.The finial is a rare find. The fire of 1666 obliterated much of the medieval street pattern and led to changes in building regulations to prevent fire spreading again with such disastrous speed.Roy Stephenson, head of archaeological collections at the Museum of London, said: "It gives a fascinating insight into the lost roofscape of medieval London, which we know relatively little about. Here we have evidence of a decorated tiled roof, possibly from a prestigious private dwelling."Mudlarks have operated for centuries along t...
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Haul of Roman coins dug up in field to earn finder a fortune
A metal detector enthusiast could share a £1m payout after finding one of Britain's largest ever collections of Roman coins in a farmer's field, it emerged today.Dave Crisp, an NHS chef, was celebrating after a coroner ruled the find of 52,000 coins was treasure. It becomes the property of the crown and is bound to end up in a museum, but Crisp and the landowner will be rewarded once the hoard has been valued by an independent panel.Crisp, 63, had spent more than 20 years hunting for buried treasure, with modest success. But he struck gold in April when he dug down a foot into the earth of a field near Frome, Somerset, and found a huge, well-preserved earthenware pot full of coins. Experts believe the coins had been deliberately buried in the third century as an offering to the gods by landowners hoping for favourable farming conditions.Speaking after the hearing at East Somerset coroner's court in Frome, grandfather-of-three Crisp said that he would continu...
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Kabul calling: British Museum set for Afghanistan exhibition
"You can inform me please where is British Museum?" It is a question foreign visitors have been asking in Bloomsbury for more than 200 years, and I was especially happy to answer it this morning, because I had just left the museum's Annual Review press conference.Headline plans at the venerable Great Russell Street institution include an exhibition about Afghanistan, which will open next spring and which is the result of protracted negotiations with Kabul and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. But Neil MacGregor, the director of the museum, would not be drawn about the impending impact of cuts to museum funds. The museum management will find out on 20 October how much money they are to lose and they will be arguing their corner hard, probably mostly behind the scenes, until then. They have already gone so far as to develop a ser...
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Staffordshire Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard valued at £3.3m
The largest and arguably most beautiful hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found in Britain has been valued at nearly £3.3m by a panel of experts, a reward that will be shared between the amateur metal detectorist who found it and the Staffordshire farmer in whose pasture it lay hidden for 1,300 years.Professor Norman Palmer, chair of the treasure valuation committee, whose members pored over 1,800 gold, silver and jewelled objects in a day-long session at the British Museum, said: "It was breathtaking – we all agreed that it was not only a challenge but a privilege to be dealing with material of such quantity, quality and beauty. It was hard to stop our imaginations running away with us."Museums in Staffordshire will now scramble to raise the money – £3.285m to be precise – which will be paid as compensation to Terry Herbert, the metal detectorist, and Fred Johnson, the farmer.Johnson was magnificently underwhelmed by his good fortune this morning. "Righ...
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This treasure stirs the West Midlands' Anglo-Saxon soul
From the Lindisfarne gospels to the Lewis chessmen, much of British heritage policy is about putting things back where they belong. Now we have a golden opportunity not to commit the original sin, and ensure the most fascinating find in a generation remains where it should.The Staffordshire hoard, that stunning collection of 1,500 Anglo-Saxon gold and silver goods discovered near Lichfield, has just gone on display at the British Museum with the earth still on it – the hoard's final outing before the treasure valuation committee sets a ...
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Staffordshire treasure hoard goes on show at British Museum
Some of the most spectacular treasure finds made in Britain have gone on display at the British Museum, still caked with the clay of the Staffordshire field that hid them for 1,300 years.Fred Johnson, the farmer on whose land near Lichfield more than 1,500 pieces of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver were found in July last year, paid his first visit to London to see the pieces safely installed in the museum, and had bought a new suit for the occasion."It's been an incredible experience. I'm overwhelmed by it all," he said, looking down on the jewel-studded gold that once ornamented swords, shields and helmets of princely quality. "They say this will change the history books; it's a strange thought that came from something lying in my field all this time. I'm trying to keep a level head about it. I'm trying not to think at all about the value of it."His friend Rita Madeley, who accompanied him to London, was on holiday when she first heard that police were swarming ...
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It's unfair to label metal detectorists as mere treasure hunters
Alexander Chancellor described Terry Herbert, who discovered the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver – and with him the rest of the metal detecting community – as "disappointed lottery players" (The hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure is spectacular. But I fear the countryside will now be overrun with metal detectorists, 25 September).And in complaining that the Staffordshire find will "inevitably bring metal-detecting in from the cold and lead to a modern gold rush", he harks back to a cold war mentality between metal detectorists and archaeologists that is now long out of date.As a muse...
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Largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found in Staffordshire
A harvest of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver so beautiful it brought tears to the eyes of one expert, has poured out of a Staffordshire field - the largest hoard of gold from the period ever found.The weapons and helmet decorations, coins and Christian crosses amount to more than 1500 pieces, with hundreds still embedded in blocks of soil. It adds up to 5kg of gold – three times the amount found in the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939 – and 2.5kg of silver, and may be the swag from a spectacularly successful raiding party of warlike Mercians, some time around AD700.The first scraps of gold were found in July in a farm field by Terry Herbert, an amateur metal detector who lives alone in a council flat on disability benefit, who had never before found anything more valuable than a nice rare piece of Roman horse harness. The last pieces were removed from the earth by a small army of archaeologists a fortnight ago.Herbert could be sharing a reward of at lea...
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Man with metal detector strikes gold in Staffordshire
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Digging deep
They are known in the trade as "grot pots" – buckets and Tupperware boxes that amateur archaeologists and metal detectorists fill with battered, corroded, base-metal coins and other finds. And in these murky vessels our history is being rewritten.As the money that funded an unprecedented explosion of professional archaeology during the economic boom years runs out, public hunger to peel back the past beneath our feet is helping to fill the gap. So the grots are identifying lost villages and settlements, Roman forts and temples, previously unknown trade routes; even mapping the slow ebb of the Roman empire from Britain.By law, you must have a licence to excavate or remove even a pebble from a scheduled ancient monument or listed building, and all treasure finds anywhere must be reported. But anyone can pick up a metal detector – there are an estimated 180,000 in Britain – and take it into a ploughed field with the permission of the landowner. Fired by an unprec...
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