2012-05-28T17:27:56+01:00501320http://www.finds.org.uk/news/guardian/index/format/jsonhttp://www.finds.org.uk/news/guardian/index/format/xmlhttp://www.finds.org.uk/news/guardian/index/format/rsshttp://www.finds.org.uk/news/guardian/index/format/atomhttp://www.finds.org.uk/news/guardianmedia/2012/mar/26/tv-show-most-important-archaeological-findTV treasure hunt show to pick Britain's most important archaeological findMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/3/26/1332763795623/Britains-Secret-Treasure--003.jpg2012-03-26T12:17:12ZHistorians and archaeologists are arguing over the single most historically important archaeological find among almost a million objects discovered in the UK in the last 15 years. Contenders include the heap of glittering Anglo-Saxon gold of the Staffordshire Hoard, a scruffy little coin that proved the existence of a previously unknown Roman emperor, a bronze token that some claim entitled the bearer to the illustrated services in a Roman brothel, a stone hand axe, or the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/oct/07/roman-helmet-sold-two-million?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487" title="">eerie shimmering beauty of the Crosby Garrett Roman helmet</a>.The debate will be followed over a week of primetime television programmes being made for ITV, Britain's Secret Treasures, to be broadcast in July and presented by the historian Bettany Hughes and the veteran journalist Michael Buerk in his first appearance on the channel.Although filming continues, the arguments are already passionate as the team attempts to narrow down almost a million objects recorded by the British Museum to a shortlist of 50. Most were found by amateurs using metal detectors, but others were uncovered by the mudlarks who comb the muddy foreshore of the Thames at low tide, during rescue excavation by archaeologists before road or building works, or by chance."How to choose? Like choosing between your babies," Hughes said. She was fascinated by the corroded coin from a hoard of 5,000 found at Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, which proved the existence of the breakaway emperor Domitian II. The only other Domitian coin, in a French collection, had been dismissed as a forgery: the proud French curator will now bring his rehabilitated coin to the British Museum to compare the two.However, Hughes's favourite – which may not make the top 50, still less the top 10 – is an Iron Age wooden beaker, a modest but very rare survivor. "There's something so touching about wood that survives from ancient history," she said, "a useful reminder that this wasn't really the stone or bronze or iron age but – for those who actually lived it – the age of wood."All the objects, from the most corroded Roman hob-nailed boot stud or lumpy fire-blackened pot to the gold and garnet glory of the Anglo-Saxon jewellery, are logged in the now vast <a href="http://finds.org.uk/" title="">treasure and portable antiquities databases</a> held at the British Museum. Since the antiquities scheme was launched 15 years ago thousands of amateurs using metal detectors have been encouraged to report everything they find through a network of officers covering the country.Although Roger Bland, keeper of portable antiquities and treasure at the British Museum, said they were excited about the chance to highlight the success of the scheme, the programmes will also inevitably revive the passionate debate about the ethics of metal detecting for antiquities, which some archaeologists regard as no better than looting.Paul Barford, a British archaeologist based in Poland, who runs a <a href="http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/09/crosby-garret-helmet-not-national.html" title="">fiercely anti-metal-detecting blog, </a>has already described the series as "a travesty", and one commentator posted on his site saying: "All archaeologists in this country should be speaking out against this rape of our heritage instead of just rolling over and letting it go on."A similar row has broken out in the US about two programmes on cable channels about antiquities finders: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/arts/television/spikes-american-digger-draws-concern-from-scholars.html" title="">American Digger on Spike TV, starring Ric Savage, </a>who has abandoned wrestling and his former alias Heavy Metal to take up metal detecting, and Diggers on National Geographic, which has been accused in a letter from the Archaeological Institute of America of encouraging looting and destruction.In the UK some finds are legally treasure, like the 1,500 pieces of the Staffordshire Hoard found by Terry Herbert three years ago, and must be reported. Others are more modest but historically priceless, and after being recorded will usually be returned to the finders: the rusty scraps of copper, bronze, iron and alloy are helping map hundreds of previously unguessed sites.Many of the most historically exciting or precious objects have been acquired by museums, but the programmes will also consider the one that got away, the Crosby Garrett ceremonial parade helmet, which exposed a gaping hole in the legal protection for finds. Although one of the most beautiful Roman objects ever found, and exceptionally rare across the entire Roman empire, it was not legally treasure because it was made of gilded copper alloy, and the finder exercised his right to send it directly to a Christie's auction. It was estimated at £300,000 but sold for £2m, with the anonymous private buyer massively outbidding Tullie House museum in Carlisle.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/media&k=ITV&k=Archaeology&k=Science&k=Television&k=Television+industry&k=Media" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/media/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/media/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=TV+treasure+hunt+show+to+pick+Britain%27s+most+important+archaeological+find+Article+1722896&ch=Media&c2=61729&c4=ITV%2CArchaeology%2CScience%2CTelevision+%28Culture%29%2CTelevision+industry+%28Media%29%2CMedia%2CCulture%2CUK+news&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=12-Mar-26&c8=1722896&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Britain's Secret Treasures on ITV to follow experts as they judge the merits of antiquities discovered in the UK in the last 15 yearsThe GuardianMediaTV treasure hunt show to pick Britain's most important archaeological findBritain's Secret Treasures on ITV to follow experts as they judge the merits of antiquities discovered in the UK in the last 15 years

Media

science/2011/dec/14/viking-king-airdeconut-treasure-lancashireEvidence for unknown Viking king Airdeconut found in LancashireMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2011/12/14/1323884588165/Artifacts-From-The-Silver-003.jpg2011-12-14T18:29:26ZEvidence 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 themselves to the Christian god. The reverse of the coin has the words DNS – for Dominus – Rex, arranged as a cross.The hoard is regarded as among the best found this century, and the fact that it was never recovered suggests its owner came to an untimely end."It was a considerable sum of money, the price of a reasonable herd of cattle, or a very good herd of sheep," Gareth Williams, a coins expert at the British Museum where the hoard is being studied, said. "One arm ring alone would just buy you an ox."Webster had collected his son from school, and was heading back to work – but he decided to allow himself a few hours in a field where he had been several times before, but never found anything more exciting than a Tudor half groat.He hit a strong signal almost immediately, and uncovered a sheet of lead only a few inches down – and was slightly disappointed with his find. The lead proved to be crudely folded into a container, and when he lifted it he released a shower of pieces of silver."I knew when I saw the bracelets it had to be Viking," he said. "When I heard later there was one coin that nobody had ever seen before, that was a strange feeling."The find will go through a treasure inquest next week to determine its value. The reward will be shared between Webster and the land owner. The<a href="http://http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/acs/sites/museums/" title=""> Museum of Lancaster</a> hopes to raise funds to buy the hoard.The hoard also had coins minted for Alwaldus, who defected to the Vikings in Northumbria after an unsuccessful attempt to claim the English crown from his considerably better known uncle, Alfred the Great. The Vikings allowed him to call himself a king, but he only survived a few years before dying in battle.There are also Frankish and Islamic coins, but one of the more intriguing would have been worthless to the original owner. Williams explained that silver coins are often found in Viking hoards, which have been tested by clipping or bending: the scruffy little fake, of copper with the thinnest film of silver almost worn away, shows what they were wary of.One of the arm rings – usually given by leaders to their warriors in return for services rendered and expected – is particularly unusual, combining Irish, Anglo Saxon and Carolingian style ornament.Another Viking hoard was found in the next parish in the 1990s, and the site is only about 97km (60 miles) from one of the most famous Viking hoards ever uncovered, the 8,600 pieces of silver, 40kg in total, of the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/t/the_cuerdale_hoard.aspx" title="">Cuerdale hoard</a>. Staff at the British Museum have been working on the definitive account of its discovery by workmen in 1840, and the contents of the treasure – some closely resembling pieces from the Silverdale hoard – are now within months of publication after a mere 130 years devoted to the task.The British Museum also announced the most recent results for the treasure finds scheme and the <a href="http://finds.org.uk/" title="">portable antiquities scheme </a>, which encourages voluntary reporting by amateurs of less valuable – but historically priceless – finds. A total of 157,188 antiquities finds were reported, and 1,638 treasure finds in 2009 and 2010,up from <a href="https://docs.google.com/a/guardian.co.uk/viewer?a=v&q=cache:jU7ZiiWrQAUJ:finds.org.uk/documents/treasurereports/2008.pdf+trteasure+finds+19+reported+in+1988,&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj2kqhFAcMncePBvcNeiS0M_ga4PjRMKzKREEVGMU82DR1d56QxJNcCA4UVvNXbALjSD8DA2w2XjoyGZ-PirWaULUcCwaE-TpqUQmUEBLo_xF3lJMKBs6tvlsuVfVT9iy6XrS0B&sig=AHIEtbQ1rSUxWr2mnLsM5HNMS3nAQwLIfg" title="">19 reported treasure finds in 1988</a>, an indication of the spectacular increase in reporting since a network of finds officers was established across the country. Treasure finds included a bronze age hoard found near Lewes in East Sussex, evidence of the complex trading networks 3,500 years ago: the objects included gold-foil decoration from northern France, amber beads, which may have come from the Baltic, along with "Sussex loop" bracelets, which have only ever been found within an 80km (50-mile) radius of Brighton.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/science&k=Archaeology&k=Science&k=Museums&k=Culture&k=UK+news" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Evidence+for+unknown+Viking+king+Airdeconut+found+in+Lancashire+Article+1676860&ch=Science&c2=61729&c4=Archaeology%2CScience%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29%2CCulture%2CUK+news&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=11-Dec-14&c8=1676860&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />201-piece silver hoard from AD900 discovered by a metal detectorist in Silverdale, LancashireThe GuardianScienceEvidence for unknown Viking king Airdeconut found in Lancashire201-piece silver hoard from AD900 discovered by a metal detectorist in Silverdale, Lancashire

Science

culture/2011/jun/20/badge-dug-field-medieval-treasureBadge dug up in field is medieval treasureMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/commercial/2011/6/20/1308593533947/St-Ursulas-companion-silv-003.jpg2011-06-20T18:13:00ZA 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 virgin companions to marry a pagan prince in Brittany, but diverted to go on a pilgrimage to Rome – and in some versions of the story, Jerusalem.After many adventures they came to Cologne, where all were slaughtered by Hun tribesmen. When a large cemetery of Roman era bones was found in the city in the 11th century, they were declared the remains of the saint and her companions, and her cult spread across Europe.King, a member of the South Ribble metal detecting club, found the silver plaque at the end of April in a field some miles from his home in Walton-le-Dale, where he had already found several hundred Victorian coins, but returned with the blessing of the landowner for a sweep with his new more high-powered metal detector."I knew immediately she was something special," he said. "I think she was hidden deliberately – she was folded over, not damaged by a plough strike in any way. It is extraordinary and moving to think how much history is locked up in this little piece of metal."Although a church in Cologne holds her shrine and a whole chapel still decorated with the supposed bones of her companions, there were so many bones that the relics spread across Europe and beyond. Some of the most beautiful reliquaries, life sized busts of fashionably dressed young women, were made to hold the bones. The badge from Lancashire is a representation of just such a shrine - and so close in style and early 16th century date that it may come from the same Bruges workshop as the one in the exhibition on loan from the Metropolitan Museum in New York.The Metropolitan reliquary, of a gently smiling young woman with her hair in a modish plaited style, is so alluring it has become the exhibition poster. The badge would have been bought as a souvenir by the Lancashire pilgrim from just such a shrine.British Museum curator James Robinson said he was "beside myself with excitement" when he saw an image of the find. "To be honest if I hadn't been working on the exhibition it might have taken me a while to clock it – as it is I recognised her immediately as one of the companions of St Ursula. I hesitate to call it a miracle, but it is a most extraordinary coincidence that this should turn up just at this time."He believes it is even possible that a similar reliquary may have been the centre of a shrine in Britain, destroyed as the cult of relics was condemned as idolatrous and blasphemous by religious reformers."The badge may be the only fragile, ephemeral piece of evidence for a cult of St Ursula in the north of England, that might have had at its centre a bust reliquary of continental manufacture."The exhibition will include reliquaries which the faithful believed once held the breast milk of the Virgin Mary, the umbilical cord of the baby Jesus, the arm of Saint Luke - holding a golden pen to symbolise the gospels he wrote - and many still containing fragments of wood claimed to come from the cross on which Christ died. A carved icon of the Virgin which according to tradition was taken from the neck of the dead emperor Charlemagne, was one of the treasures of Aachen cathedral until it was given as present to Napoleon's Josephine. Some of the loans have never before left the churches or villages where they have been venerated for centuries. Many were believed to have miraculous powers, and made the places that held them wealthy pilgrimage sites - as Canterbury cathedral was for the relics of the martyred Thomas a Becket, and Santiago de Compostela in Spain remains to this day.King, who has always been interested in history and spends days researching his finds in museums and archives, reported it under the Portable Antiquities scheme which encourages metal detectors to report all their archaeological finds, but she proved to be silver and so legally treasure which must be reported. When valued - the price will be shared between King and the landowner - Robinson hopes the British Museum will acquire her to find a permanent resting place in its medieval galleries.Treasures of Heaven, British Museum, London, 23 June – 23 October <div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/culture&k=Museums&k=Culture&k=UK+news&k=Art+and+design&k=Archaeology&k=Science" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Badge+dug+up+in+field+is+medieval+treasure+Article+1596286&ch=Culture&c2=61729&c4=Museums+%28Culture%29%2CCulture%2CUK+news%2CArt+and+design%2CArchaeology%2CScience%2CExhibitions&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=11-Jun-20&c8=1596286&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Scrap of twisted silver found by metal detector in Lancashire will be part of British Museum's exhibition of reliquariesThe GuardianCultureBadge dug up in field is medieval treasureScrap of twisted silver found by metal detector in Lancashire will be part of British Museum's exhibition of reliquaries

Culture

culture/2011/may/25/metal-detector-ancient-england-mapsWarriors wielding metal detectors redraw ancient maps of EnglandMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2011/5/25/1306347238318/A-Roman-erotic-knife-hand-003.jpg2011-05-25T22:27:35ZAmateurs 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 <a href="http://finds.org.uk/news" title="report just launched">report</a> 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 <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/departments/portable_antiquities_treasure.aspx" title="">treasure</a> and <a href="http://finds.org.uk/" title="">portable antiquities</a> schemes based at the museum, which maintains a network of finds officers across England.As the detectorists and the officers have got to know and trust one another, reports of both treasure and other ancient items – such as bits of broken horse harness – have increased dramatically.Since the portable antiquities scheme (PAS) was established in 1997, more than 700,000 finds have been reported.It will cost about £1.3m in the next year but, according to arts minister Ed Vaizey, it is "very cost effective. That's probably a very vulgar thing to say, but it is – and it's the envy of the world".The finds often provoke awe, wonder or covetousness. But occasionally a discovery will elicit ribald laughter.One such was a knife handle found in a field in Lincolnshire, and bought – for under £1,000 – by the Collection museum in Lincoln. The handle shows three people – a man, a youth and a woman – entwined in an erotic embrace. The youth is clasping a decapitated head to his chest."My colleagues are used to me talking about some amazing find that's come in," said Antony Lee, the archaeologist at the museum who was first shown the artefact by its finder, David Barker."This time there was quite a crowd in the staff room, and many unprintable comments. Other knife handles like this have been found – all from Britain – but nobody else has the decapitated head. Ours is unique in that respect."It is on display, but we haven't had the nerve to bring it out for an education day yet."The display label says diffidently: "The significance of the decapitated head is unclear."Lee added delicately: "If you look carefully, you'll see that the woman is the sleeping partner as it were."The British Museum report covers treasure finds, which must by law be reported, and other objects which detectorists are encouraged to report and can then keep or sell.They include a hoard of 840 iron age gold coins from a dairy farm at Wickham Market, Suffolk.Dave Breen, son of the landowner, recalled: "I got the call on April the first, and on the day my father retired, so I naturally assumed it was a wind-up."The hoard was the largest found since the 19th century and contained coins probably made for Boudicca's Iceni tribe a few decades before she led a rebellion which torched Colchester and London.The coins were valued at £300,000, a figure shared between finder and farmer.A field in West Yorkshire yielded five fabulous pieces of gold, assumed to be a Viking's loot, including a massive ring containing an ounce of pure gold.It was, archaeologist Helen Geake said, "a ring of power – it could have been worn by a prince either of the church or state".Vaizey said: "Perhaps we could have one made for David Cameron, just to show the people the power and status that he now enjoys."MacGregor's favourite find was a thumbnail sized 15th century gold locket found at Rolleston, Nottinghamshire.This was inscribed Cauns repentir, meaning without regret – "the earliest reference in history to the title of the famous Edith Piaf song," MacGregor said with tongue in cheek.The British Museum has acquired it and put it with another found in Nottinghamshire in 1966. The items are so similar that they may have been made by the same goldsmith, and it is believed both were hidden during the trauma of the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485).One of the humblest finds was George II penny carefully defaced by a sailor with a beautifully drawn phallus, found in the Thames by Steve Brooker, a tower block window installer who potters about in the mud on his days off."The finds reported through the portable antiquities scheme and treasure are changing our understanding of the past, helping archaeologists learn where people lived and died and how these finds were used," MacGregor said."But what is truly exciting is that these finds are being made by the public, not in most cases by archaeologists, transforming the archaeological map of Britain."<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/culture&k=Heritage&k=Culture&k=Museums&k=Archaeology&k=Science&k=UK+news" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Warriors+wielding+metal+detectors+redraw+ancient+maps+of+England+Article+1563456&ch=Culture&c2=61729&c4=Heritage+%28Culture%29%2CCulture%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29%2CArchaeology%2CScience%2CUK+news&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=11-May-25&c8=1563456&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Treasure and artefacts found by amateurs have changed the understanding of how the country was invaded and settledThe GuardianCultureWarriors wielding metal detectors redraw ancient maps of EnglandTreasure and artefacts found by amateurs have changed the understanding of how the country was invaded and settled

Culture

science/2011/feb/09/geoff-egan-obituaryGeoff Egan obituaryRoger Blandhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/2/9/1297275429636/Geoff-Egan-003.jpg2011-02-09T18:17:57ZGeoff 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 between about 1200 and 1800) that had not been recognised by archaeologists before the mudlarks' discoveries brought significant numbers to light.As the specialist in medieval and later non-ceramic finds in the Museum of London archaeology service, Geoff played a key role in producing the series Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, an essential reference for all specialists in this period, and he was personally responsible for two volumes: The Medieval Household (1998) and Dress Accessories (1991, with Frances Pritchard). He also wrote Material Culture in London in an Age of Transition: Tudor and Stuart Period Finds from Southwark (2005).Another area of interest centred on the lead seals that were affixed to textiles sent out in trade from the 14th to the 18th centuries. Geoff appreciated that recording the locations where these items are found can give us much information about the cloth trade, for a long time the main source of England's prosperity. His study of these led to a doctorate from the Institute of Archaeology, London, and also resulted in the publication of Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum (1994).Geoff was a key player in the project to catalogue a series of finds from the enigmatic site of Meols, thought to have been a beach market, on the Wirral coast. The monumental catalogue, written with David Griffiths and Rob Philpott, is another important reference work. In all, Geoff contributed more than 100 papers and notes to national and county journals.Geoff was born in Wembley, north-west London, the only son of Daphne and Harold Egan, the government chemist from 1970 to 1981. He was educated at what he described as the "academic hothouse" of Harrow County school, and gained a place at Peterhouse, Cambridge, to study classics, although he subsequently switched to archaeology and anthropology.After graduation in 1975 he worked for a while at Kew Gardens, but a love of travel took him to Norway, where he worked on an archaeological excavation at Trondheim. On his return to Britain in 1976, he obtained a job at the Museum of London and stayed there for the next 34 years, working his way up to be a fieldwork director, then a finds specialist. In the 1970s the redevelopment of the City of London led to an upsurge in archaeological excavations, and the museum's urban archaeology unit, as it then was, was created to respond to this need.Geoff's expertise was of great value to the portable antiquities scheme, established in 1997 to record finds made by members of the public. He had a part-time role with the scheme from 2004 and in July 2010 was appointed to a full-time post as finds adviser for the scheme, based at the British Museum.In the month before he died Geoff had spoken at an archaeological colloquium in Lübeck, Germany, while the next week he was speaking at a metal detecting club in Blackpool. His enthusiasm was infectious. When ITN proposed to make a series of programmes called Mud Men on finds from the Thames foreshore, shortly to be screened on the History Channel, the mudlarks urged them to engage Geoff's services. As far as they were concerned, he was "god".Geoff was greatly loved by his peers and built up many friends in European and American museums. Perhaps the organisation that gave him greatest pleasure was the Company of Arts Scholars, Collectors and Dealers, one of the newest of the city guilds. He served as its master in 2009-10, and one of his proudest moments came last summer when he joined members of the guild who exercised their right as freemen of the City of London to drive a flock of sheep across London Bridge.Geoff was a magpie. His home in Wembley, where he lived all his life, was crammed with the fruits of his collecting, from pottery sherds and other antiquities neatly classified in cabinets to a huge collection of books. He even kept the many tickets he accumulated on his travels. He never took to modern technology. ITN were surprised to learn that he did not possess a mobile phone and the ways of computers were a bit of a mystery to him. Geoff would have been more at home with a quill pen.He is survived by his cousin, Graham.• Geoffrey Egan, archaeologist, born 19 October 1951; died 24 December 2010<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/science&k=Archaeology&k=Science&k=Museums&k=Culture&k=London&k=UK+news" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Geoff+Egan+obituary+Article+1517482&ch=Science&c2=61729&c4=Archaeology%2CScience%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29%2CCulture%2CLondon+%28News%29%2CUK+news&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Roger+Bland&c7=11-Feb-09&c8=1517482&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Archaeologist who brought the mudlarks in from the coldThe GuardianScienceGeoff Egan obituaryArchaeologist who brought the mudlarks in from the cold

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science/2011/jan/26/elaine-paintin-obituaryElaine Paintin obituaryNigel Ramsayhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/1/26/1296063163476/Elaine-Paintin-003.jpg2011-01-26T17:51:46ZInto 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 a supporter of CND. She read history at St Hilda's College (1966-69) and adored her medieval tutor, the austere and very learned Beryl Smalley, but she got on equally well with the tutor to whom she was sent out at Queen's College, Alastair Parker.A few years in legal publishing did not really appeal. Elaine chose instead to return to Oxford for a one-year diploma in prehistoric archaeology. That probably helped her to gain a post in the British Museum's department of prehistoric and Romano-British antiquities (1975). She made many lasting friends there but perhaps sensed that her visual and design talents were not going to get their fullest expression. The director, John Pope-Hennessy, once remarked of one of her displays: "You can't make a flint look aesthetic, however hard you try."In 1976 she moved over to the British Library – this being the time when the museum and library were still in one building. She soon became head of exhibitions, education, loans and publications, carrying off the brief with the panache and elan that were her hallmarks. The British Library was beginning to shape its own personality, and she took enormous care over its typography, rationalising gallery and exhibition labels into a single house style.Elaine was never one to let herself be submerged by any of the institutions with which she was engaged, but she was the sort of person who liked to know their history. She could easily have been a successful lawyer, given her clear-headedness and readiness to tackle detail. This was evident in her effectiveness as chair of the library's branch of the First Division Association, the senior civil servants' union.Her next post was as the British Library's head of art (1987-97). The management had undertaken to spend 1% of the total budget for the planned new building in Euston Road on works of art. Elaine was tenacious in seeing that this was done, whatever cutbacks the library had to endure. It is thanks to her that we can see today, for instance, the enormous bronze statue by Eduardo Paolozzi of Isaac Newton in the forecourt, the steel gates by Lida and David Kindersley, and the wonderful tapestry by RB Kitaj, If Not, Not, in the front hall.Secondment in 1993-94 to the Department of National Heritage led to her key achievement. Given her success as secretary of the treasure trove review committee, she was asked to take on the preparation of what became the Treasure Act 1996. Many previous generations had bewailed the narrowness of the existing medieval law of treasure trove (limited, for instance, to objects that were entirely made of gold or silver), and the rise of the hobby of metal detecting had made the problem acute. The law is not yet perfect, but things are incomparably better thanks to the act and the subsequent Portable Antiquities Scheme, with several hundred newly discovered antiquities now being at least reported to the British Museum and local museums each year.Undeterred by compulsory early retirement from the library, Elaine put to use a new range of skills which she was developing, doing pro bono work as trustee and director of the Cartoon Art Museum (1998-2003), trustee of the Institute of Historical Research (1998-2009) and fundraiser and (from 2010) council member of the Society of Antiquaries. From 2002 until her death, she was director of the Marc Fitch Fund, which supports a large number of local history and archaeological projects and publications. It is the only trust of its size and remit, and Elaine was the ideal person to help the trustees assess the merits of the multifarious appeals that are made to it.Elaine always took delight, and an impish amusement, at exploring the lives of antiquaries of the past, conscious as she was of being the great-niece of an Oxford urban antiquary, Harry Paintin.She is survived by her daughter, Isabel, of whom she was enormously proud.• Elaine Margaret Paintin, historian, archaeologist and arts administrator, born 21 October 1947; died 9 December 2010<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/science&k=Archaeology&k=British+Library&k=British+Museum" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Elaine+Paintin+obituary+Article+1511092&ch=Science&c2=61729&c4=Archaeology%2CBritish+Library%2CBritish+Museum+%28Extra+site+only%29&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Nigel+Ramsay&c7=11-Jan-26&c8=1511092&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Former British Library head of art and drafter of the Treasure ActThe GuardianScienceElaine Paintin obituaryFormer British Library head of art and drafter of the Treasure Act

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science/2010/dec/12/roman-coins-frome-metal-detectorWhy Frome is still cashing in on the RomansMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2010/12/9/1291899195951/Roman-coins-002.jpg2010-12-12T00:06:48ZDave 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. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/08/hoard-roman-coins-somerset" title="">The 63-year-old ex-army man had discovered a scattering of Roman silver coins in the field</a>. 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."He filled in the hole, chucking in an old horseshoe on the wild off chance that somebody else with a detector might happen on the site. Three days later, he returned with the professionals. His grandson came along for the fun of it, expecting to be clear by teatime: the two ended up sleeping in a tent to protect the deep pit, the find still only half exposed.Crisp hated history at school, and left at 15 to join the services, where he became a cook. He now works as a hospital chef in Chippenham, and took up <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/feb/13/art.patrickbarkham" title="">metal detecting</a> as a hobby. The farm where he made his find, in a hamlet about a mile from Frome, is just an hour from his home in Devizes, and handy for a quick mooch about after an early shift. He talks easily of Roman emperors and Saxon kings, of gray ware pottery and silver siliquae coins, of the buckles and belt tags and strap ends which can light up this subject that now fascinates him.What he found that afternoon is now stacked in a waist-high pile of shoe box-sized cardboard boxes, in a corner of an office in the coins department of the British Museum – a Diagon Alley place of mysteries, on two floors, protected by a three-inch-thick strongroom door.The boxes hold the contents of a giant potbellied jar which lay in the clay of that sloping Somerset field for almost 2,000 years, filled to overflowing with the largest coin hoard ever found in a single container in Britain. "You can see what a job it's going to be to clean the horrors," Sam Moorhead, a Roman coins specialist, says fondly, running through his fingers a handful of disgusting bits of metal, green with corrosion, ragged with welded-on bits of other broken coins. Studying the 52,503 of them that are legible will occupy the experts for the rest of their careers.Moorhead, and Roger Bland, another numismatist at the British Museum, scratch their heads over how to fund the work. Just washing and drying all the coins to prevent further corrosion, after they arrived in the museum, took two months. Their best guess is the full job will take three years and cost around £120,000 — but it could light up an obscure corner of Roman Britain.The Somerset farm where Crisp made his find is clipped by a Roman road, but there is no record of a camp, villa, village, temple or cemetery anywhere in the area. But the Romans were clearly there.When the amateur treasure hunter decided on that spring day to call in the professionals, he knew exactly what to do. Treasure finds must by law be reported — 806 in the just released figures for 2008. However, such discoveries are dwarfed by the torrent of objects, lower in value but priceless in history, reported in the 13 years of the voluntary <a href="http://finds.org.uk/" title="">Portable Antiquities Scheme</a>, which has gradually built up a country-wide network of finds officers who record amateur discoveries. Both schemes are run from the British Museum, and headed by Roger Bland.Before making his big find, Dave Crisp had reported scores of small finds from the same area of farmland. This time, the finds officer for Somerset quickly called in experts from the county heritage service; local archaeologist Alan Graham led the excavation joined by museum staff, Crips and his excited grandson, plus several members of the Sheppard family, the farm owners.When Bland first got there and saw the deep pit, the broken empty pot and the mass of bagged coins, he admits his first reaction was, "Cripes, how are we going to deal with this?"The 16 kilos of coins were moved to the British Museum for safekeeping and study, almost wrecking the suspension of Sam Moorhead's ageing VW. In July, as with all treasure finds, a coroner's inquest was held in Somerset, formally declaring the coins treasure. Then an expert committee met at the British Museum, and after hours of debate and three widely varying outside opinions on the value of the hoard, finally set a price of £320,250 on the coins, to be shared between Crisp and the landowners, Geoff and Anne Sheppard.In the old days the British Museum would have wanted to keep the hoard. Instead, Bland and Moorhead are committed to finding the money in London for the conservation work and research, but are backing the Somerset museum in Taunton in its determination to acquire the hoard for its native county. The museum hopes to have done this by the time it reopens after a major redevelopment next summer; meanwhile, Crisp and the Sheppards have yet to receive a penny. Britain for its size has more coin and other hoards than anywhere else in the Roman empire. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/24/anglo-saxon-treasure-hoard-gold-staffordshire-metal-detector" title="">The Staffordshire hoard</a>, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found, made world headlines last year when it too was found by a metal detector in a nondescript field. The Winchester hoard – again found scattered across a field, 10 years ago – was several kilos of pure gold iron age jewellery. The Hoxne hoard, found in 1992 by a Suffolk farmer looking for a dropped hammer, held more than 400 pieces of gold and silver buried in the fourth century AD.The conventional explanation is that these hoards are either underground piggy banks, or stashed in times of danger to be recovered when normal life resumes – or never, if the feared catastrophe overwhelms the owner. This fits some finds, such as the recent discovery in Somerset of English civil war-era silver, buried when the royalists were walled up in a nearby mansion with the parliamentarians on the march. But the Frome hoard doesn't match that picture at all.When Moorhead and Bland sorted the coins they could identify, they turned out to have been minted for 25 different emperors, but from oldest to newest, they spanned just four decades. So these were not the accumulated savings of generations of local people.The third century AD was not a time of trauma either. The Vikings were centuries away, the Irish behaving themselves, the Roman towns and cities growing a bit ragged at the edges, but the long rolling Somerset valleys were full of prosperous Roman villas and flourishing agricultural communities.Nor will the piggy bank explanation work. The pot could never have been carried to or from the site full – the thin pottery would have collapsed under the weight. Within a few months, as damp and dirt seeped into the jar, if the people wanted their money back, they would have had to do just what the archaeologists did: smash the container.The most recent coins in the hoard were minted for the near-forgotten Carausius, a bull-necked bruiser from Flanders, who was proclaimed by his soldiers emperor of Britain and Gaul when the Romans sacked him for looting the grain ships he was supposed to be protecting. Many of these coins were in superb condition, better – Moorhead says enviously – than those in the British Museum. They date the hoard to not earlier than AD293 when Carausius was murdered by his treasurer, but because they were in the middle layer, with older coins over them, they also suggest the pot was set into the ground and then filled in one load, not over a period of years.And so, Moorhead is convinced, the only plausible explanation for how they ended up in the field is that the hoard was a ritual offering to the gods.When civilians hear the word "ritual deposit" it may conjure romantic images of druids in procession, skin drums thumping and snake-shaped trumpets tootling. To many archaeologists, it suggests a despairing absence of other explanations. Yet Roman Britain abounded in gods. Every spring, rock, forest and valley, every season, every climate, was sacred.Some of the names would have been familiar in Rome, but the Romans were also adept at incorporating much older beliefs: Sulis, the goddess of the hot springs at Bath, was a Celtic goddess who became Romanised as Sulis Minerva. When they were excavated, archaeologists found that the springs that fed the baths and the drains were full of coins, pieces of jewellery, even little prayers and curses inscribed on pieces of lead, addressed to the gods and thrown into the water."Nobody questions that before the Romans came, the people of Britain offered lavish gifts in metal to their gods," Moorhead says. "Why do we think that suddenly ended when the Romans came? If crops failed or dangers threatened, you made an offering for better times to come. If times were good – as they were in third-century Britain – you made an offering so that they would continue."Moorhead is convinced the Frome hoard represents a stupendous offering of as much cash as the community could raise. The swords and bronze shields their ancestors threw into rivers and springs were gone, and coins were the easiest way of assembling a massive quantity of metal – and significantly, the Sheppards report that that ridge of their field is still so boggy in wet weather, it may well lie over an ancient spring. Future archaeology in the surrounding area may yet uncover more evidence of who lived there, and what they believed.Dave Crisp is certain the ritual explanation is right. "There was something important to them about this place. Maybe there was an oak tree or a little sacred grove or a spring that's gone now. You can imagine a grandfather saying to the family 'that hill is special, that's where we always go'. Maybe times were bad, maybe times were good and they wanted to say thanks."Since April he has been out with his detector on other farms, but found nothing except a few common coins. He looks forward to many more happy days after he retires next summer, with the new detector that has been his only extravagance since he learned the amount of the reward."Some archaeologists hate us," he says. "They'd really rather see this stuff left rotting in the soil. But it's our history waiting to be found and told, that's got to be right."<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/science&k=Archaeology&k=History+and+history+of+art&k=Museums" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Why+Frome+is+still+cashing+in+on+the+Romans+%7C+Discover+Article+1491978&ch=Science&c2=61729&c4=Archaeology%2CHistory+and+history+of+art+%28Education+subject%29%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29&c3=The+Observer&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=10-Dec-12&c8=1491978&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Last April, a man who hated history at school unearthed the largest coin hoard ever found in Britain. But why had it been buried in a field in Somerset, asks Maev KennedyThe ObserverScienceWhy Frome is still cashing in on the Romans | DiscoverLast April, a man who hated history at school unearthed the largest coin hoard ever found in Britain. But why had it been buried in a field in Somerset?

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politics/2010/nov/23/british-museum-takes-over-finds-agenciesBritish Museum takeover safeguards buried treasure agencies as quango goesMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/11/23/1290533838900/crosby-garrett-helmet-003.jpg2010-11-23T18:30:16ZThe 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 Council – but it is far from clear how the council, which has taken a much heavier 30% cut, will cope with the additional responsibility. Future responsibility for archives is also still unclear – they will not become part of the Arts Council portfolio.Wales will also have to take responsibility for its own treasure and other antiquity finds – likely to cause many tricky decisions in the rich archaeological landscape along the border, or finds by English detectorists going into Wales.Vaizey also promised that the government will take another look at the legal definition of treasure next year. There have been urgent demands for a review from archaeologists, in the wake of what is perceived as the heritage disaster of the beautiful Crosby Garrett Roman helmet. The helmet, one of the most spectacular finds by a metal detectorist in decades, did not meet the definition of treasure – which must be reported, and museums have the right to acquire if they pay the agreed valuation. It was sold for £2m at a Christie's auction, with the still anonymous buyer far outbidding Tullie House museum in Carlisle, which was desperate to acquire it.At present only finds of gold, silver, coin hoards and prehistoric bronze hoards, count as treasure, leaving out finds such as single gold coins however valuable, and exceptional bronze finds like the helmet.Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, which is already the headquarters for both the treasure and portable antiquities schemes, said he was delighted to take on an extremely important task which had transformed understanding of the history of the country, and created a community of national and local museums, archaeologists and responsible metal detectorists.Vaizey said he was "an enormous fan of the schemes" and was proud of being cover boy for a metal detecting magazine, even though he found only a 1971 2p coin.Among the 806 treasure finds in 2008, slightly up on the number reported in the previous year, were a beautiful gold bracelet, brought to the surface when a field in Castlederg, County Tyrone, was ploughed, and found by a man clearing stones. The rare find dates from 950-800BC, with beautiful refined incised decoration at the finials. It has just been valued at £95,000 and will be acquired by the Ulster Museum. Very few treasure finds are reported from Northern Ireland, where detecting for archaeological objects is illegal.During the English Civil War, a field in Nether Stowey, Somerset, became a hiding placefor a stash of spoons, a goblet, and a spectacular three part silver salt holder. They were hidden in an earthenware jar at a time when parish records report that people were hiding their treasures, bewildered as to which way the winds of fortune would blow them, with a Royalist garrison occupying nearby Stowey Court and the parliamentarians on the march.The treasure finds are dwarfed by the torrents of objects of lesser commercial but vast historical value reported under the portable antiquities scheme: 659,000 since 1997, 84,891 in the last 12 months.One of the most touching would have cost pennies when new, a matchbox-sized lead toy coach found on the Thames foreshore by Andy Johanessen, a builder and decorator who now lives at Charlton, south-eats London. His passion for the history of the river and the capital began when he was brought up in Rotherhithe.His most important equipment, he said, is not a metal detector but his eyes and a stout pair of wellies. The cobweb-fine strands of metal were squashed flat when he found it, but he managed to restore its original shape. He took it to the Museum of London, which has an outstanding collection of early metal toys dropped into the river more than 1,000 years ago by undoubtedly bitterly disappointed children.The museum concluded that it is more than 400 years old, fully justifying the miniature display case he has made to add it to the rapidly expanding museum in his home. Surrounded by gold and silver treasure, most of the archaeologists admitted it was their favourite find of the year.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/politics&k=Quangos&k=Archaeology&k=Museums&k=Museums&k=Arts+Council+England" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/politics/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/politics/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=British+Museum+takeover+safeguards+buried+treasure+agencies+as+quango+goes+Article+1483996&ch=Politics&c2=61729&c4=Quangos%2CArchaeology%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29%2CMuseums+%28Education%29%2CArts+Council+England&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=10-Nov-23&c8=1483996&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Schemes for checking finds by amateurs face 15% cuts as Arts Council gets responsibility for regional museumsThe GuardianPoliticsBritish Museum takeover safeguards buried treasure agencies as quango goesSchemes for checking finds by amateurs face 15% cuts as Arts Council gets responsibility for regional museums

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culture/2010/oct/07/roman-helmet-sold-two-millionRoman helmet sold for £2mMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/10/7/1286458253065/Roman-helmet-sold-at-chri-002.jpg2010-10-07T13:34:43ZIn 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 <a href="http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/romanhelmet" title="">fundraising</a> in the last month. Three more bids of £100,000 each lost it the treasure."I'm still shaking," Andrew Mackay, senior curator at the museum, said moments later. "Cumbria has had a few bad knocks recently, and this fundraising campaign was a good news story for the area, so this is a real blow. People will be terribly disappointed – we had thousands of pounds coming in every day, and children literally emptying their piggy banks."We are now very, very anxious to talk to the buyer to see where we go next."The stunning Roman cavalry helmet, dating from the late first or early second century AD, a piece of public swagger for parades and festivals never meant to be worn in combat, is only the third ever found complete in Britain, the first since 1905, and by far the most beautiful.It has transfixed thousands of visitors in the past week, when it went on display for the first time at Christie's in South Kensington. People have stood gazing into the dreamy youthful face, the mouth slightly parted, the eyes with their delicate cut-out pupils. Christie's sources report that, uniquely, many viewers had asked where they could donate to the campaign to keep it in a British museum.Christie's could not reveal whether the buyer is British or overseas – a Californian phone bidder, presumed to be the Getty museum, dropped out at £800,000 – but the museum's best hope is that it is either a UK buyer willing to loan, or if it has been bought overseas that the government will impose an export bar to allow time to raise the money to match the sale price.Only a handful of helmets such quality have been found anywhere across the former Roman empire, and potential buyers from all over the world registered interest.The finder and his father had searched the same fields for years, with the permission of the landowner, and never found anything more exciting than a few coins and some bits of broken horse harness: he continued going there, he has explained, because he liked the views.When he found the helmet face down in the clay, the silvered face intact but the Phrygian cap and its jaunty little griffin topknot crushed into many pieces, he first thought it was a Victorian ornament.His good fortune has exposed a gaping hole in Britain's protection for archaeological heritage finds, and is bound to lead to calls for reform of the Treasure Act.If the helmet had fallen within the legal definition of treasure, the finder and landowner would have been awarded compensation at the market price, and it would probably already be on display in the Tullie House galleries.However, only objects with a large composition of gold or silver, such as the spectacular Staffordshire hoard of Anglo Saxon gold which was acquired last year by a coalition of local museums, or prehistoric hoards of bronze such as the find earlier this year of a vast clay pot in Frome holding 52,000 mainly low-value coins, fall within the law. A single bronze object, however astonishing, is not legally treasure.The finder was not even legally obliged to report the helmet, although he chose to do so under the voluntary portable antiquities scheme (Pas) for reporting archaeological finds, and he was fully entitled to turn down the suggestion of a negotiated sale to the museum, and instead send it straight to auction."It's so frigging annoying," said Sally Worrell, the Pas finds officer who first saw the mask. "I'm gutted to be honest – it's so frustrating to have worked so long on this and then not see it go to the museum."Roger Bland, head of the Pas, based at the British Museum, whose Roman experts have fully backed Tullie House's attempt to acquire it, agreed. "It does expose a real gap in the treasure law – a review was promised three years ago, and if it had been carried out, this outcome could have been avoided."The report of the find does mean the find spot is recorded and full archaeological excavation to uncover the riddle of how such a stunning object ended up in a nondescript field miles from the nearest Roman site may still follow.• This footnote was added on 8 October 2010. £2m is the saleroom 'hammer price', ie the final bid that secures the sale. The overall price will include the buyer's premium of around 15% to give a total figure of approximately £2.3m.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/culture&k=Heritage&k=Culture&k=Archaeology&k=Museums&k=UK+news&k=Science" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Roman+helmet+sold+for+%C2%A32m+Article+1462440&ch=Culture&c2=61729&c4=Heritage+%28Culture%29%2CCulture%2CArchaeology%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29%2CUK+news%2CScience%2CArt+and+design&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=10-Oct-07&c8=1462440&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Metal detectorist who found it in Crosby Garrett, Cumbria, now a millionaire as UK museum priced out by anonymous buyerThe GuardianCultureRoman helmet sold for £2mMetal detectorist who found it in Crosby Garrett, Cumbria, now a millionaire as UK museum priced out by anonymous buyer

Culture

culture/2010/sep/27/roman-cavalry-helmet-cumbria-campaignCampaign to keep Roman cavalry helmet in Cumbria given boostMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/9/27/1285604782677/helmet-002.jpg2010-09-27T16:28:09ZAn 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 <a href="http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/romanhelmet" title="the fund raising campaign ">the fundraising campaign </a>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 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/sep/13/roman-helmet-metal-detector-cumbria" title="the head of a handsome youth wearing a Phrygian cap">the head of a handsome youth wearing a Phrygian cap</a>, 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 century in Britain, and one of a handful of such quality found anywhere in the territories of the Roman empire.The helmet is going on sale with a guide price of £300,000, but experts believe it could sell for far more.The British Museum, where experts have examined the helmet under the Portable Antiquities scheme for reporting metal detecting finds, is giving its blessing to the campaign to keep it in the north, where its original owner may have served in the Hadrian's Wall garrison.Ralph Jackson, senior curator of Romano-British collections at the British Museum, said it was vital that Tullie House bought it. "The Cumbria Helmet is a find of the greatest importance, both for its intrinsic interest and for the additional light it can shed on the manufacture and supply of prestige military equipment. It is both chilling and striking."<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/culture&k=Museums&k=Culture&k=Archaeology&k=UK+news&k=Heritage" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Campaign+to+keep+Roman+cavalry+helmet+in+Cumbria+given+boost+Article+1457754&ch=Culture&c2=61729&c4=Museums+%28Culture%29%2CCulture%2CArchaeology%2CUK+news%2CHeritage+%28Culture%29&c3=guardian.co.uk&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=10-Sep-27&c8=1457754&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Anonymous benefactor pledges £50,000 to help buy artefact found with metal detector for Tullie House museum in Carlisleguardian.co.ukCultureCampaign to keep Roman cavalry helmet in Cumbria given boostAnonymous benefactor pledges £50,000 to help buy artefact found with metal detector for Tullie House museum in Carlisle

Culture

culture/2010/sep/13/roman-helmet-metal-detector-cumbriaRoman cavalry helmet found with metal detector may go abroad at auctionMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/9/13/1284372146968/The-Crosby-Garrett-Helmet-001.jpg2010-09-13T12:14:46ZA 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 adopted as the symbol of many revolutionary movements - topped with a griffin.Although unquestionably a treasure, it is not covered by treasure law which would give a British museum the automatic right to acquire it by paying compensation to the finder and land owner. The old Treasure Act applied only to gold and silver. The new law includes bronze, but only when it is found in hoards. A heap of corroded bronze axes found on a Dorset hilltop two years was declared treasure, but the helmet cannot be so classified.The finder, who is from the north-east and in his early 20s, has been detecting with his father for several years. He has found small pieces, including a few Roman coins, on a Cumbrian farm which is near a Roman road but miles from the nearest recorded Roman site. When he found the helmet face down in mud on the farm in May he first thought it was a Victorian ornament.He reported the find to the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum, a voluntary scheme encouraging metal detectors to report all archaeological finds, but has now exercised his right to send it straight to auction.If Tullie House is outbid, as seems inevitable, export of the helmet is likely to be temporarily barred by the government to give a British museum the chance to match an overseas buyer's bid.Roger Bland, head of Portable Antiquities, said: "This is an internationally important find and one which everyone agrees should be in a museum in this country and we are supporting the efforts of Tullie House museum in Carlisle to acquire it."The Portable Antiquities Scheme played an essential role in working with the finder to discover exactly where the helmet was found, he said.The helmet will be offered in Christie's antiquities sale on 7 October. The catalogue describes it as "an extraordinary example of Roman metalwork at its zenith" which is set apart by its beauty, workmanship and completeness. "In addition the remarkable Phrygian-style peak surmounted by its elaborate bronze griffin crest appears unprecedented," it says.The catalogue notes that the only two other helmets have been found in Britain complete with face masks - the Ribchester helmet, found in 1796 and now in the British Museum, and the Newstead helmet found in 1905 and now in Edinburgh.The helmet was found in more than 30 pieces, but has been restored and cleaned for sale by Christie's. Archaeologists fear clues on how it came to be buried in rough land may have been destroyed in the process."It is a pity that the object was restored before there was any opportunity to examine it scientifically, as that would have given us more information about how it came to be in the ground," Bland said. "We hope it will be possible for there to be an archaeological examination of the find spot."Metal detecting and Roman history sites have been buzzing with the news of the find for days, with many enviously describing it as the find of a lifetime, and some comparing it in importance to the Anglo Saxon helmet found in the Sutton Hoo ship burial.Paul Barford, a British archaeologist working in Warsaw, Poland, is a bitter critic of the PAS scheme, believing that it encourages rather than controls treasure hunting. He<a href="http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/09/crosby-garrett-helmet-leaves-country.html" title=" writes on his blog "> writes on his blog: </a>" I say let the Crosby Garrett helmet go abroad. Let it be an easily understood symbol for the people of the British Isles just how their archaeological heritage is being squandered by those who should be protecting it."<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/culture&k=Museums&k=Heritage&k=Culture&k=Archaeology&k=UK+news" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Roman+cavalry+helmet+found+with+metal+detector+may+go+abroad+at+auction+Article+1451416&ch=Culture&c2=61729&c4=Museums+%28Culture%29%2CHeritage+%28Culture%29%2CCulture%2CArchaeology%2CUK+news&c3=guardian.co.uk&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=10-Sep-13&c8=1451416&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Bronze helmet valued at £300,000 uncovered at farm near Crosby Garrett in Cumbriaguardian.co.ukCultureRoman cavalry helmet found with metal detector may go abroad at auctionBronze helmet valued at £300,000 uncovered at farm near Crosby Garrett in Cumbria

Culture

uk/2010/aug/03/medieval-roof-finial-found-thamesMedieval roof finial found beside ThamesMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/8/3/1280834264988/Medieval-roof-finial-foun-002.jpg2010-08-03T11:30:26ZA 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 the Thames, now working under licence from the Port of London authority and the Museum of London. Their finds, ranging from Victorian boots to Roman rings, are reported to experts under the portable antiquities scheme.Experts at the museum will now clean and study the finial, and their <a href="http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/finial" title="">progress can be followed online</a>.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/uk&k=London&k=Heritage&k=UK+news&k=Culture" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/uk/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/uk/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Medieval+roof+finial+found+beside+Thames+Article+1434393&ch=UK+news&c2=61729&c4=London+%28News%29%2CHeritage+%28Culture%29%2CUK+news%2CCulture&c3=guardian.co.uk&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=10-Aug-03&c8=1434393&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Terracotta in the shape of an animal would have decorated a grand tiled roof at a time when most people lived under thatchguardian.co.ukUK newsMedieval roof finial found beside ThamesTerracotta in the shape of an animal would have decorated a grand tiled roof at a time when most people lived under thatch

UK news

science/2010/jul/22/roman-coins-somerset-metal-detectorHaul of Roman coins dug up in field to earn finder a fortuneSteven Morris2010-07-22T15:04:23ZA 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 continue with his hobby.He said: "I'm over the moon. The money doesn't really matter. Obviously it's nice, but the significant thing for me is that I am the person who has made this discovery."I will keep working until I retire next year and will definitely continue with my hobby – you don't just stop a hobby. I have no idea what I'll spend the cash on. Maybe I'll buy a new wok."People often compare metal detecting to trainspotting, or say it's a bit geeky. Well, it just goes to show."The value of the hoard will not be known until it is examined in detail, but some experts have privately speculated it could run to hundreds of thousands of pounds and might even be worth up to £1m. The value will be split between Crisp and the landowner. Anna Booth, finds liaison officer for Somerset at the Portable Antiquities Scheme, said: "It will be fairly substantial, but how substantial, we don't know."Over the years, Crisp, from Devizes, Wiltshire, has found coins, artefacts and jewellery of Celtic, Saxon, Victorian and Georgian origin. Earlier this year he found 62 coins scattered in the field near Frome, which he reported to the authorities, before returning for a second sweep. On 11 April, Crisp unearthed the haul of 52,503 coins.Crisp told the coroner, Tony Williams, how he dug a foot beneath the surface after his metal detector emitted a "funny signal". He dusted away the soil and found the pot full of treasure.Crisp said: "I sat down and started to dig around and pulled out a bit of clay, which was attached to a pot. At first I found a coin, then another, then another. Then I realised what I had stumbled across and I literally stood up and shouted: 'I have found a haul.'"He alerted a finds liaison officer and a team of archaeologists was sent to study the site. Three days later they unearthed the pot, which was taken to the British Museum. It is thought to date from between AD253 and 293.Crisp said: "Leaving it in the ground for the archaeologists to excavate was a very hard decision to take, but as it had been there for 1,800 years, I thought a few days more would not hurt. My family thought I was mad to walk away and leave it."Booth told the hearing the hoard was probably an offering to the gods for "favourable weather or good farming conditions".She said the pot was so heavy that whoever left it there did not intend to return to collect the contents.Roger Bland, head of portable antiquities at the British Museum, said it was an extraordinary discovery. "It's the largest hoard of coins that has even been found in a single pot," he said. "In 1978, there was another find that was a little bit bigger but that was in two pots."We are at the beginning of understanding it properly. We have been able to wash and count all the coins and do a preliminary sort."He said most were bronze with about five silver coins that date back to the time of Emperor Carausius."He is not well known, this man," said Bland. "He was a Roman commander who set himself up as emperor in Britain and ruled for seven years. To find such a big group of his coins will give us a lot of information about this episode in our nation's history, which is not well understood."The Museum of Somerset is expected to try to raise the money to buy the coins to keep them in the county.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/science&k=Archaeology&k=Science&k=UK+news" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/science/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Haul+of+Roman+coins+dug+up+in+field+to+earn+finder+a+fortune+Article+1429716&ch=Science&c2=61729&c4=Archaeology%2CScience%2CUK+news&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Steven+Morris&c7=10-Jul-22&c8=1429716&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Metal detector enthusiast Dave Crisp could share £1m with owner of Somerset field where he unearthed 52,000 coinsThe GuardianScienceHaul of Roman coins dug up in field to earn finder a fortuneMetal detector enthusiast Dave Crisp could share £1m with owner of Somerset field where he unearthed 52,000 coins

Science

culture/charlottehigginsblog/2010/jul/01/british-museum-afghanistan-exhibitionKabul calling: British Museum set for Afghanistan exhibitionVanessa Thorpehttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/7/1/1278000123469/burqa-afghanistan-002.jpg2010-07-01T16:29:20Z"You can inform me please where is <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/" title="">British Museum</a>?" 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 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/neilmacgregor" title="">Neil MacGregor</a>, 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 series of money-saving options with varying degrees of severity, of which they would give no detail. MacGregor's chairman, Niall FitzGerald, also pointed out that cuts would have come under any government.What MacGregor would say, though, was that the exhibition schedule is "almost fully funded until the end of 2012". So no changes are likely there, he reassured the assembled press.The <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/feb/26/kingdom-of-ife-british-museum-review" title="">BM's thematic concentration on Africa</a> over the past year is to be succeeded by a foray into religious and spiritual history and by a plan to work with museum experts in Canberra on a further understanding of Australian art.Two strong drives seemed to be behind much of the museum's plans. MacGregor is building on links between museums abroad, including in Basra in Iraq, and in Shanghai and Beijing in China, and is also underlining the connections between the British Museum and the regional museums in this country. This is something now made more possible through the <a href="http://www.finds.org.uk/" title="">"portable antiquities scheme"</a> and it means not just swapping exhibits around across the country and helping with the research on important finds, like the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/25/alexander-chancellor-staffordshire-hoard" title="">Staffordshire Hoard</a>, but also actually setting up British Museum galleries in other museums.Spreading this network of expertise across England and across the world is, of course, a way to create a richer understanding of history. But more significantly, it is a brilliant way to handle the British Museum's two big image problems from the past: its acquisitive, colonial history and its London-centric attitude.Sir Neil has made another smart move this year, too. Radio 4 listeners will certainly have noticed the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/system_pages/holding_area/explore/a_history_of_the_world.aspx" title="">History of the World in 100 Hundred Objects</a> series that he writes and presents everyday. It has become one of the station's most popular programmes, and he revealed today, has already been the subject of 5,456,000 downloads worldwide. It has also boosted visitor numbers, he said.And when I left the museum, passing long, winding queues of foreign visitors all migrating to the gates of the museum from Holborn, it was pretty clear this place is a crucial asset to Britain.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/culture&k=Culture&k=Museums&k=Art+and+design" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Kabul+calling%3A+British+Museum+set+for+Afghanistan+exhibition+Article+1420750&ch=Culture&c2=61729&c4=Culture%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29%2CArt+and+design&c3=guardian.co.uk&c6=Vanessa+Thorpe&c7=10-Jul-01&c8=1420750&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Vanessa Thorpe: The British Museum's plans for next spring include an exhibition about Afghanistan, as it seeks to spread its network of expertise across the worldguardian.co.ukCultureKabul calling: British Museum set for Afghanistan exhibitionThe British Museum's plans for next spring include an exhibition about Afghanistan, as it seeks to spread its network of expertise across the world

Culture

uk/2009/nov/26/staffordshire-anglo-saxon-hoard-millionsStaffordshire Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard valued at £3.3mMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/9/24/1253779989707/Anglo-Saxon-zoomorphic-mo-005.jpg2009-11-26T13:41:00ZThe 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. "Right now I'm just trying to get over the flu, and money is the last thing on my mind. I hope it'll not make any difference to me. I won't be putting in a swimming pool anyway, this country is wet enough already."I've been a millionaire for years anyway," he chuckled wheezily, "isn't that what they always say about farmers?"Johnson, who paid his first visit to London to see the pieces installed in a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/03/staffordshire-treasure-hoard-british-museum" title="temporary display at the British Museum">temporary display at the British Museum</a>, and bought a suit for the occasion, is in awe of the extraordinary objects that poured out of his field. "Anybody would have to be in wonder at the workmanship, and the years all that history has been lying in the ground with me driving across it."Some had speculated that the hoard could be worth many times the sum eventually settled on by the valuation committee. But Johnson was content: "A friend of mine came round and said another hoard was worth £12m, and mine was bigger so it might be worth more – but I said I hope to God it ain't, I wouldn't want that responsibility."He added: "I've met people through this I would never have come upon in all my life. It's been a wonderful experience."Palmer said valuing the hoard was a unique experience in his 13 years as chair of the committee."We dealt with masses of paperwork before the meeting, and solicited four independent expert valuations in advance, which is unprecedented in my experience. When we met we were driven by two lodestars, scrupulous accuracy obviously, and a determination not to allow the process to drag on and on but to arrive at a figure which would be acceptable to all parties. I don't think they would have been happy if it had dragged on beyond Christmas."Herbert found the first pieces of gold last July, some lying just below the surface or tangled in grassroots in the field, which Johnson had ploughed deeper than usual the previous season. When he reported the find a small army of archaeologists and forensic investigators hit the field, giving the cover story that police were investigating a murder.They recovered box after box of exquisitely worked gold, including a cheek flap from a helmet, dozens of pommel and hilt decorations from swords, a gold processional cross and a cryptic inscription from the Bible on a strip of gold. Archaeologists will be poring over the find for years, and have already said it will rewrite the history of Anglo-Saxon England, and the pugnacious kingdom of Mercia where it was found.When the find was <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/sep/27/anglo-saxon-treasure-hoard-staffordshire" title="announced in September">announced in September</a>, the news went round the world. Some mud-caked pieces went on display for a fortnight at Birmingham city museum and people queued for up to four hours to see them, with the museum having to double its opening hours. Highlights of the collection now on display at the British Museum have created the same buzz of excitement."There was some speculation that because there was just so much in this hoard it might drive down its value," Palmer said. "But others of us held the opposite opinion, that because it had created so much excitement, if it were ever to go to auction, people who wouldn't normally be interested would want to own a piece of it, driving up the value."We are satisfied that we have arrived at a value which is both fair, and reflects the extraordinary interest and importance of this hoard."The British Museum has launched a rapid-response <a href="http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/invt/cmc23288" title="book on the hoard">book on the hoard</a>, written by Kevin Leahy, the archaeologist who spent weeks cataloguing all 1,800 pieces as they came into the Birmingham museum – with his wife weighing them and labelling them with cloakroom tickets – and Roger Bland, head of the portable antiquities scheme, which encourages metal detectorists such as Herbert to report all their archaeological finds. One pound from each copy sold will be donated to the appeal to acquire the treasure for local museums, to keep the extraordinary objects on display in the county whose history they have transformed.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/culture&k=Heritage&k=Culture&k=Museums&k=UK+news" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Staffordshire+Anglo-Saxon+treasure+hoard+valued+at+%C2%A33.3m+Article+1310422&ch=Culture&c2=61729&c4=Heritage+%28Culture%29%2CCulture%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29%2CUK+news&c3=guardian.co.uk&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=09-Nov-26&c8=1310422&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Proceeds of sale of 1,800 gold, silver and jewelled objects to be split between amateur metal detectorist and farmerguardian.co.ukCultureStaffordshire Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard valued at £3.3mProceeds of sale of 1,800 gold, silver and jewelled objects to be split between amateur metal detectorist and farmer

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commentisfree/2009/nov/09/staffordshire-treasure-stirs-midlands-soulThis treasure stirs the West Midlands' Anglo-Saxon soulTristram Hunt2009-11-09T19:30:00ZFrom the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/mar/20/uk.news" title="Lindisfarne Gospels">Lindisfarne gospels</a> to the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/01/lewis-chess-scotland-norway" title="Lewis chessmen">Lewis chessmen</a>, 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 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/24/anglo-saxon-treasure-hoard-gold-staffordshire-metal-detector" title="Staffordshire Hoard">Staffordshire hoard</a>, 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 <a href="http://www.ukdetectornet.co.uk/index.php?id=114" title="treasure valuation committee">treasure valuation committee</a> sets a price to be split between the finder Terry Herbert and the field owner. But once those experts have announced whatever millions are needed, the loot must be fast-tracked out of Bloomsbury back to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A23670948" title="kingdom of Mercia">kingdom of Mercia</a>.For history has come alive in the West Midlands, with some 40,000 enthusiasts queueing for over three hours at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to look at the truly stunning hoard. Curators have been astonished by the passion and pride sparked by the discovery, with late openings laid on and the collection relocated to a larger gallery.Part of this interest has been about the local identity the treasure points to. The role of the West Midlands in the civil war and industrial revolution is well understood, but the region now realises it also stood at the centre of the seventh century Anglo-Saxon world.At its peak the Mercian kingdom stretched from London to Derbyshire and Herefordshire to Lincolnshire, and the Mercian king was calling himself <a href="http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/ancient_british_history/77966" title="Rex Britanniae">Rex Britanniae</a>. But this find of garnet-encrusted pommel caps, sword hilt collars and helmet fragments points to all sorts of other interesting questions about the wealth, kingship patterns, burial rituals and levels of Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon elite. It also highlights the unexpected internationalism of seventh-century Mercian trade, with some of the precious stones hailing from today's Turkey and Sri Lanka.The significance of this hoard cannot be overplayed. According to the historian Simon Keynes, its riches start to explain how the Mercians held on to power for so long, as well as expand our understanding of Saxon culture, beginning with the epic poem <a href="http://www.lone-star.net/literature/beowulf/" title="Beowulf">Beowulf</a>. It is the type of find that changes the teaching of the past almost overnight.It is also a testament to the continuing success of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Since its inception in 1996, this voluntary framework for rewarding amateur archaeologists and metal detectives has transformed public honesty over ancient finds. Rather than being scurried on to the black market, coins, medals and artefacts are handed into local museums with the promise of a cash payout. As a result, the last six years has seen an average increase of nearly 200% in the reporting of buried treasure.Terry Herbert followed the Treasure Act to the letter. So, following the announcement of an initial valuation (rumoured to be near £3m), museums and galleries will have four months to raise the money for the acquisition and display of the hoard. After that, the British Museum, and potentially foreign parties, can step in. However, with his trademark acuity – and more than enough restitution cases to be getting on with – <a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article5400493.ece" title="Neil MacGregor">Neil MacGregor</a>, the museum's director, has backed the campaign to return the collection to the region.The question is: where in the West Midlands? Staffordshire county council and Lichfield district council can both lay a decent claim to the hoard, and the income from thousands of tourists who will come to see it. But the closest museum to the find is probably the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke, while the big regional player is Birmingham. Thankfully, in contrast to the usual dogfight, the region's leaders have decided to work together under Birmingham and Stoke's leadership with follow-up plans for heritage tourism across "Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire".All they have to do now is raise the money. Small sums have begun filling museum donation boxes, but it will take proper cash to preserve the collection. Already the regional <a href="http://www.birminghampost.net/news/politics-news/2008/10/06/ian-austin-lands-role-as-minister-for-the-west-midlands-65233-21974923/" title="minister, Ian Austin">minister, Ian Austin</a>, has called on "our modern Mercian merchant princes to come to the aid of the appeal" – and so they should.For decades regional leaders have rightly complained about the way England's historical and archaeological treasures disappear into the golden triangle of London-Oxford-Cambridge, with South Kensington's museum mile creaming off the top. Well, here is a golden opportunity to undo a relentless process of cultural centralisation with a campaign to "Hold on to the Hoard".Those <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Country" title="Black Country">Black Country</a> industrialists, Staffordshire landowners, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/constituency/1354/sutton-coldfield" title="Sutton Coldfield">Sutton Coldfield</a> professionals and Birmingham business people need to find their inner Anglo-Saxon. For what the hoard reveals is that their seventh-century forebears, those righteous conquerors and wealthy warlords, were determined to use their prosperity to support art, crafts and design. These treasures, with their eagle miniatures, biblical inscriptions and thousands of inlaid garnets, show a kingdom replete with affluence and cultural confidence. The West Midlands wealthy have an unprecedented opportunity to ensure that future generations have ready access to this incredible insight into their identity and heritage.Because if they fluff it some future director of the British Museum will no doubt find themselves in the invidious position of explaining just why the Staffordshire hoard can't return to Mercia.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/commentisfree&k=The+Staffordshire+hoard&k=Heritage&k=Art+and+design&k=Archaeology&k=UK+news&k=Science" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/commentisfree/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/commentisfree/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=This+treasure+stirs+the+West+Midlands%27+Anglo-Saxon+soul+%7C+Tristram+Hunt+Article+1302809&ch=Comment+is+free&c2=61729&c4=Staffordshire+hoard%2CHeritage+%28Culture%29%2CArt+and+design%2CArchaeology%2CUK+news%2CScience%2CCulture&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Tristram+Hunt&c7=09-Nov-09&c8=1302809&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Tristram Hunt: The Staffordshire hoard has brought history to life in modern-day Mercia – and it is here that the collection has to returnThe GuardianComment is freeThis treasure stirs the West Midlands' Anglo-Saxon soul | Tristram HuntThe Staffordshire hoard has brought history to life in modern-day Mercia – and it is here that the collection has to return

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culture/2009/nov/03/staffordshire-treasure-hoard-british-museumStaffordshire treasure hoard goes on show at British MuseumMaev Kennedyhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/11/3/1257263898946/Farmer-Fred-Johnson-inspe-004.jpg2009-11-03T16:15:54ZSome 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 across his fields investigating a murder – the cover story to explain the small army of archaeologists, historians and forensic scientists who hit the farm after the hoard was discovered by an amateur metal detector, Terry Herbert. "My first thought was 'Goodness, what's Fred done now?'" she recalled. She was still stunned at the truth of what lay hidden beneath a field she used to cut across as a child walking to church.When the find was announced in September, some pieces were exhibited for a few weeks at Birmingham city museum, where more than 40,000 people queued for up to four hours to see them.The hoard has gone to the British Museum so that the treasure committee can begin the long task of working out the value of the unprecedented find, containing many unique pieces. The reward will eventually be shared between Herbert and Johnson.The local museums and politicians, with the blessing of the government and the British Museum, are determined it will then return for permanent display in the county where it was found, once the heart of the warlike kingdom of Mercia, whose fierce princes may have looted the treasures from their Anglo-Saxon neighbours."It's not the quantity, it's the sheer quality, the barbaric splendour of it that gets you," said Kevin Leahy, an archaeologist who originally trained as a metalworker, and who carried out the initial cataloguing. "This was the very, very best they could do – and their best was pretty damn good."The hoard has overshadowed many other fabulous finds contained in the most recent Treasure and Portable Antiquities report, for 2007, also launched at the museum. Treasure – gold, silver and bronze hoards – must by law be reported, and the antiquities scheme also encourages metal detectors to report all archaeological finds. As the scheme has expanded since 1997 to the present network of finds officers across the country, the number of treasure reports has climbed, to 747 in 2007, along with 66,311 non-treasure finds.The discoveries include a Viking hoard from the Vale of York and a silver gilt cup – undoubtedly acquired under dubious circumstances from some French monastery, and discovered stuffed with gold and silver pieces – which has been jointly bought by the British Museum and the York Museums Trust. There is also a small, rolled-up sheet of Roman gold found in south Oxfordshire, a charm to ensure safe childbirth for a woman called Fabia, only the third such amulet found in Britain.One of the more modern pieces was a small 19th-century lead figurine found on the Isle of Wight, portraying Tom Molineaux, born a slave on a Virginia plantation, who won his freedom and a $500 prize in one of his early boxing bouts and went on to become an international celebrity.<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/culture&k=Museums&k=Heritage&k=Archaeology&k=Culture&k=UK+news&k=Science" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/culture/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Staffordshire+treasure+hoard+goes+on+show+at+British+Museum+Article+1299993&ch=Culture&c2=61729&c4=Museums+%28Culture%29%2CHeritage+%28Culture%29%2CArchaeology%2CCulture%2CUK+news%2CScience&c3=guardian.co.uk&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=09-Nov-03&c8=1299993&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Farmer on whose land 1,500 pieces of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver were found pays first visit to London for exhibition openingguardian.co.ukCultureStaffordshire treasure hoard goes on show at British MuseumFarmer on whose land 1,500 pieces of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver were found pays first visit to London for exhibition opening • <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/03/iron-age-gold-treasure-found-scotland" title="Iron age gold treasure found in Scotland">Iron age gold treasure found in Scotland</a>

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commentisfree/2009/oct/08/response-metal-detectoristsIt's unfair to label metal detectorists as mere treasure huntersGareth Williams2009-10-07T23:05:04ZAlexander Chancellor described Terry Herbert, who discovered the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/sep/24/heritage-archaeology" title="Staffordshire Hoard">Staffordshire Hoard</a> of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver – and with him the rest of the metal detecting community – as "disappointed lottery players" (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/25/alexander-chancellor-staffordshire-hoard" title="The hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure is spectacular. But I fear the countryside will now be overrun with metal detectorists, 25 September">The hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure is spectacular. But I fear the countryside will now be overrun with metal detectorists, 25 September</a>).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 museum curator I work regularly with metal detectorists, or with objects which they have found. Detector-finds represent a large proportion of the material I see, and they have been fundamental in changing our understanding of the past. Finds as spectacular as the Staffordshire Hoard are rare, but the cumulative assemblages of single finds recorded through the <a href="http://www.finds.org.uk/" title="Portable Antiquities Scheme ">Portable Antiquities Scheme </a>(PAS) are massively important. Within my own department alone there are three PhD students whose research is largely based on detector finds.Chancellor says that detectorists are "generally people for whom dreams of sudden wealth are all that sustain them in their dreary and normally unrewarding hobby". But the vast majority of finds bring little or no pecuniary reward to the finders, nor are they expected to. In a number of instances of which I am aware, detectorists have donated items to museum collections without reward, because they wish to make those finds available to the public.This does not mean that all detectorists are saints. The findspot of the hoard has been kept quiet precisely because there is still a real problem with "nighthawks" – who detect without permission, and primarily for financial gain. They do real damage, both to farmland and to the archaeological record, and fully deserve Chancellor's criticisms.I have not had the chance to discuss the find directly with Mr Herbert, so I wouldn't presume to comment on his motivations. I have, however, visited the Bloxwich detecting club of which he is a member. I went as a visiting speaker, with expenses covered by the club members. This is typical of the hundreds of lectures given each year to detecting clubs by PAS staff, curators and other archaeologists.Detectorists attend not in the hope of financial gain, but because they are genuinely interested in history and want to find out more. In many cases, individual detectorists have considerable expertise of their own.Some, like Mr Herbert, are unemployed, or in low-income jobs. Many (but by no means all) have limited formal education. Rather than assuming that such people must necessarily be greedy and uninterested in history, we should welcome the fact that metal-detecting has generated an interest in history in social groups which have not traditionally engaged with museums. And if some detectorists become wealthy in the process, what's wrong with that?Gareth Williams is curator of early medieval coinage at the British Museum<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/commentisfree&k=Archaeology&k=Museums" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/commentisfree/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/commentisfree/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Response%3A+It%27s+unfair+to+label+metal+detectorists+as+mere+treasure+hunters+Article+1288227&ch=Comment+is+free&c2=61729&c4=Archaeology%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29&c3=The+Guardian&c6=Gareth+Williams&c7=09-Oct-07&c8=1288227&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />Response: We curators find their passion and generosity inspiring. Stop sneering at them, says Gareth WilliamsThe GuardianComment is freeResponse: It's unfair to label metal detectorists as mere treasure huntersWe curators find their passion and generosity inspiring. Stop sneering at them

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uk/2009/sep/24/anglo-saxon-treasure-hoard-gold-staffordshire-metal-detectorLargest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found in StaffordshireMaev Kennedy2009-09-24T05:56:50ZA 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 least £1m, possibly many times that, with the landowner, as local museums campaign to raise funds to keep the treasure in the county where it was found.Leslie Webster, former keeper of the department of prehistory at the British Museum, who led the team of experts and has spent months poring over metalwork, described the hoard as "absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells"."This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries," she predicted.The gold includes spectacular gem studded pieces decorated with tiny interlaced beasts, which were originally the ornamentation for Anglo-Saxon swords of princely quality: the experts would judge one a spectacular discovery, but the field has yielded 84 pommel caps and 71 hilt collars, a find without precedent.The hoard has just officially been declared treasure by a coroner's inquest, allowing the find which has occupied every waking hour of a small army of experts to be made public at Birmingham City Museum, where all the pieces have been brought for safe keeping and study.The find site is not being revealed, in case the ground still holds more surprises, even though archaeologists have now pored over every inch of it without finding any trace of a grave, a building or a hiding place.The field is now under grass, but had been ploughed deeper than usual last year by the farmer, which the experts assume brought the pieces closer to the surface. Herbert reported it as he has many previous small discoveries to Duncan Slarke, the local officer for the portable antiquities scheme, which encourages metal detectorists to report all their archaeological finds. Slarke recalled: "Nothing could have prepared me for that. I saw boxes full of gold, items exhibiting the very finest Anglo-Saxon workmanship. It was breathtaking."As archaeologists poured into the field, along with experts including a crack metal detecting scheme from the Home Office who normally work on crime scene forensics, Herbert brought one friend sworn to secrecy to watch, but otherwise managed not to breath a word to anyone – even the fellow members of his metal detecting society when they boasted of their own latest finds.None of the experts, including a flying squad from the British Museum shuttling between London and Birmingham, has seen anything like it in their lives: not just the quantity, but the dazzling quality of the pieces have left them groping for superlatives.They are still arguing about the date some of the pieces were made, the date they went into the ground, and the significance of most seemingly wrenched off objects they originally decorated. There are three Christian crosses, but they were folded up as casually as shirt collars. A strip of gold with a biblical inscription was also folded in half: it reads, in occasionally misspelled Latin, "Rise up O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate the be driven from thy face."Kevin Leahy, an expert on Anglo-Saxon metal who originally trained as a foundry engineer, and who comes from Burton-on-Trent, has been cataloguing the find and describes the craftsmanship as "consummate", but the make up of the hoard as unbalanced."There is absolutely nothing feminine. There are no dress fittings, brooches or pendants. These are the gold objects most commonly found from the Anglo-Saxon ere. The vast majority of items in the hoard are martial - war gear, especially sword fittings."If the date of between AD650 and AD750 is correct, it is too early to blame the Vikings, and just too early for the most famous local leader, Offa of Offa's Dyke fame.Leahy said he was not surprised at the find being in Staffordshire, the heartland of the "militarily aggressive and expansionist" 7th century kings of Mercia including Penda, Wulfhere and Æthelred. "This material could have been collected by any of these during their wars with Northumbria and East Anglia, or by someone whose name is lost to history. Here we are seeing history confirmed before our eyes."Deb Klemperer, head of local history collections at the Potteries museum, and an expert on Saxon Staffordshire pottery, said: "My first view of the hoard brought tears to my eyes – the Dark Ages in Staffordshire have never looked so bright nor so beautiful."The most important pieces will be on display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from tomorrow until Tuesday October 13, and will then go to the British Museum for valuation – a process which will involve another marathon collaboration between experts. Their best guess today is "millions".Leahy, who still has hundreds of items to add to his catalogue, has in the past excavated several Anglo-Saxon sites including a large cemetery of clay pots full of cremated bone. He said: "After all those urns I think I deserve the Staffordshire find."<h2>Mysteries of Mercia</h2>It is no longer politically correct to refer to the period as the dark ages – but Anglo-Saxon England remains a shadowy place, with contradictory and confusing sources and archaeology. Yet out of it came much that is familiar in modern Britain, including its laws, its parish boundaries, a language that came to dominate the world, as well as metalwork and manuscript illumination of dazzling intricacy and beauty.Mercia was one of Britain's largest and most aggressive kingdoms, stretching from the Humber to London, its kings and chieftains mounting short but ferocious wars against all their neighbours, and against one another: primogeniture had to wait for the Normans, so it was rare for a king to reign unchallenged and die in his bed.They were nominally Christian by the date of the Staffordshire hoard, but sources including the Venerable Bede suggest that their faith was based more on opportune alliances than fervour.In south Staffordshire, at the heart of the kingdom, Tamworth was becoming the administrative capital and Lichfield the religious centre as the cult grew around the shrine of Saint Chad. There were few other towns, and most villages were still small settlements of a few dozen thatched buildings. Travel, if essential, would have been easier by boat: archaeology suggests that much of the Roman road network was decaying, and in many places scrub and forest was taking back land which had been farmed for centuries.The metalwork in the hoards came from a world very remote from the lives of most people, in mud and wattle huts under thatched roofs, living by farming, hunting, fishing, almost self-sufficient with their own weavers, potters and leather workers, needing to produce only enough surplus to pay dues to the land owner. A failing harvest would have been a far greater disaster than a battle lost or the death of one king and the rise of another.The world of their nobles is vividly evoked in poems like Beowulf, probably transcribed long after they became familiar as fireside recitations, of summer warfare and winter feasting in the beer hall, where generous gift giving was as important as wealth.Rich and poor lived in the incomprehensible shadow of a vanished civilisation, the broken cement and stone teeth of Roman ruins studding the countryside, often regarded with dread and explained as the work of giants or sorcerers. One poem in Old English evokes the eerie ruins of a bathing place, possibly Bath itself: "death took all the brave men away, their places of war became deserted places, the city decayed."<div class="gu_advert"> <iframe marginheight="0" scrolling="NO" width="300px" marginwidth="0" src="http://resource.guim.co.uk/global/adcode/generatehtml?slot=Bottom&partner=guardianapis.com/uk&k=UK+news&k=Archaeology&k=Heritage&k=Art+and+design&k=Benefits" style="border: none" frameborder="0" height="250px"> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/uk/oas.html/@Bottom"> <img alt="Ads by The Guardian" src="http://oas.guardian.co.uk/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/guardianapis.com/uk/oas.html/@Bottom"></img> </a> </iframe> </div><img src='http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-api/1/H.20.3/98867?ns=guardian&pageName=Largest+ever+hoard+of+Anglo-Saxon+gold+found+in+Staffordshire+Article+1281444&ch=UK+news&c2=61729&c4=UK+news%2CArchaeology%2CHeritage+%28Culture%29%2CArt+and+design%2CBenefits+%28Society%29&c3=guardian.co.uk&c6=Maev+Kennedy&c7=09-Sep-24&c8=1281444&c9=Article' width='1' height='1' />First pieces of gold were found in a farm field by an amateur metal detector who lives alone on disability benefitguardian.co.ukUK newsLargest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found in StaffordshireFirst pieces of gold were found in a farm field by an amateur metal detector who lives alone on disability benefit

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uk/2009/sep/24/archaeologyMan with metal detector strikes gold in StaffordshirePress Association2009-09-24T01:56:25ZLargest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found in Britain, archaeologists sayguardian.co.ukUK newsMan with metal detector strikes gold in Staffordshire

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