Articles about the Scheme in the Guardian

It's unfair to label metal detectorists as mere treasure hunters

2009/10/07 by Gareth Williams
Originally published in The Guardian Comment is free

Alexander Chancellor described Terry Herbert, who discovered the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver – and with him the rest of the metal detecting community – as "disappointed lottery players" (The hoard of Anglo-Sax…

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Largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found in Staffordshire

2009/09/24 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in guardian.co.uk UK news

A harvest of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver so beautiful it brought tears to the eyes of one expert, has poured out of a Staffordshire field - the largest hoard of gold from the period ever found.The weapons and helmet decorations, coins and Christian crosses amount to more than 1500 pieces, with hundreds still embedded in blocks of soil. It adds up to 5kg of gold – three times the amount found in the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939 – and 2.5kg of silver, and may be the swag from a spectacularly successful raiding party of warlike Mercians, some time aroun…

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Man with metal detector strikes gold in Staffordshire

2009/09/24 by Press Association
Originally published in guardian.co.uk UK news

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Digging deep

2009/08/27 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in The Guardian Science

They are known in the trade as "grot pots" – buckets and Tupperware boxes that amateur archaeologists and metal detectorists fill with battered, corroded, base-metal coins and other finds. And in these murky vessels our history is being rewritten.As the money that funded an unprecedented explosion of professional archaeology during the economic boom years runs out, public hunger to peel back the past beneath our feet is helping to fill the gap. So the grots are identifying lost villages and settlements, Roman forts and temples, previously unknown trade routes; even mapping the slow ebb of the …

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Beginner's guide to archaeology

2009/08/27 by Mike Pitts
Originally published in The Guardian Science

Archaeology on television can seem like an activity for geeks in white coats and blokes in over-sized jumpers. But its range of activities is so wide – from laboratory to museum, from excavation to historic building – almost anyone can find a welcome somewhere. Master our quick guide, and you will soon sound like a proper digger.Key conceptsSite: A place where something happened in the past that could be or is the subject of excavation.Evaluation: Research, including the digging of narrow…

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When hidden treasure is just a Stone's throw away

2009/07/04 by Harriet Meyer
Originally published in The Observer Money

Metal detecting will, for some people, always be viewed as the beach equivalent of trainspotting or twitching; an activity associated with social misfits. But joining enthusiasts to uncover hidden treasure could mean potentially profiting from long summer days (or, at worst, an antidote to boredom). In fact, it can be quite rock and roll – really! – with legendary Rolling Stone Bill Wyman such an enthusiast he even has his own website. Since the gadget arrived in the early 1970s, the hobby has soared in popularity. Countless small, low-value item…

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Treasure raiders scooping up UK heritage

2009/02/16 by Maev Kennedy and Sam Jones
Originally published in The Guardian Science

Not all treasure thieves tiptoe through the shells of Iraqi museums or churn up the deserts of Peru in their hunt for valuable antiquities. Nearer to home "nighthawkers" are using metal detectors and online auctions to strip rural Britain of its archaeological riches, and their illegal activities are proving every bit as destructive.English Heritage has been so concerned about the extent of the depredation that it commissioned a study, which revealed that what was once an illicit hobby has mushroomed into a semi-professional criminal industry.According to police, thieves have for…

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£350,000 gold collar hailed as best iron age find in 50 years

2008/11/20 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in The Guardian Culture

An iron age gold collar worth more than £350,000 that was found by an amateur metal detectorist in a muddy field in Nottinghamshire was described yesterday as the best find of its kind in half a century."I was only in the field because a customer kept me late," Maurice Richardson, a tree surgeon from Newark, said yesterday. "Normally I'd never want to go into this field because a plane crashed there in the last war, and the whole place is littered with bits of metal."The first beep from his detector was indeed a chunk of wartime scrap metal, but as he ben…

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In heaven or on earth?

2008/11/01 by Jonathan Sumption
Originally published in The Guardian Books

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Things to do with your family this week

2007/12/22 by
Originally published in The Guardian Life and style

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Corrections and clarifications

2007/12/19 by
Originally published in The Guardian News

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Rare find highlights antiquities fears

2007/12/17 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in The Guardian UK news

Some 1,650 years ago someone was so comprehensively fed up with the state of the Roman empire that they committed an act of treason, blasphemy and probably criminal defacing of the coinage. They cursed the emperor Valens by hammering a coin with his image into lead, then folding the lead over his face.The battered scraps of metal discovered by Tom Redmayne, an amateur metal detector, in a muddy field in Lincolnshire are a unique find.The mid-fourth century was a time of turmoil in Roman Britain. A Roman aristocrat, Valentinus, had been exiled to Britain where he was stirring up trouble.Thousands of Roman cursing charms survive, scrawled on pieces of lead w…

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Lost or found?

2007/12/17 by Andrew Colin Renfrew
Originally published in guardian.co.uk Comment is free

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Scheme to log treasures faces cuts

2007/11/22 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in guardian.co.uk Art and design

Russell Peach's plastic ice cream tub contained many items that made his metal detector bleep excitedly, but only one that made an archaeologist's heart skip a beat - a unique find that will rewrite one small corner of British history."I didn't know what it was, I just had a feeling it was really old," Peach, a landscape contractor, said of the small muddy piece of metal. Peach's treasure has turned out to be a copper-alloy comb, almost 2,000 years old, with a swirly decoration known from contemporary mirrors. Similar decoration is known on bone combs, but only one similar metal comb is know…

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'He has not only transformed the public's view of what the British Museum is for, but also the view of the politicians'

2007/05/11 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in The Guardian UK news

In 1952 Glasgow council did something extraordinary: it bought an enormous crucifixion by Salvador Dali, and changed a small boy's life. The city flocked to see it, including the schoolboy Neil MacGregor. He was transfixed; he bought a postcard and kept it by his bed for years. It turned him from a career in law, or medicine like his parents, towards art history and museums.From last night and for 10 weeks, BBC viewers will follow the dramas and intrigues of The Museum, an institution the size of a substantial village, and the mayor who paces its streets first thing each morning, British Museum director …

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Metal gurus

2007/02/13 by Patrick Barkham
Originally published in The Guardian Art and design

Eyes down and bulbous headphones attached to their ears, 17 figures march like purposeful ants across bleak rows of winter wheat. It is the coldest day of winter so far. A blast that forecasters like to call arctic whips in from the north. The Isle of Wight is as exposed as a rowing boat on an icy ocean. "On days like this you begin to wonder about your sanity," says one of these amateur sleuths and treasure seekers known as metal detectorists. Another swears he is sweating inside his fisherman's floatation suit. I am wearing a shirt, jumper, fleece, padded jacket and raincoat with jeans, walking boots and leather gloves …

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Not for sale yet - the 'cursed' 14 pieces of silver worth £100m

2006/10/16 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in The Guardian UK news

One of the most beautiful and infamous treasure hoards of the 20th century, 14 pieces of Roman-era silver of staggering quality, will resurface today on display in London, to the consternation of leading archaeologists who regard it as archaeological loot.Although Bonhams auction house, which will display the Sevso Hoard, insists no sale is planned, the Marquess of Northampton who bought the silver for an undisclosed sum in the 1980s recently said he "hopes" the silver will be sold, and that it has "cursed" his family. It now belongs to a trust he founded.But the Hungarian government has written to Bonhams t…

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Netted: agreement to control sale of antiquities on eBay

2006/10/03 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in guardian.co.uk Culture

After months of negotiation, agreement was reached yesterday between the online auction site eBay, the British Museum, and the government's Museums, Libraries and Archives council, to control the booming trade in British antiquities on the site.Shoals of archaeological objects, an average of 600 a day when volunteers monitored the site, appear on the site: yesterday's offers included an elegant Roman bronze dress pin reportedly found in Bedfordshire, a small gold medieval ring, and a silver cap badge, once worn by a member of the household of the unfortunate Richard Duke of York, who would go on to become one of the princes in the Tower and a victi…

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Archaeologists and amateurs agree pact

2006/05/01 by Maev Kennedy
Originally published in The Guardian UK news

The acquisition by the British Museum of a thumbnail-sized chunk of battered inscribed gold - a very rare runic inscription, probably hacked up by Vikings centuries after it was made - marks a historic truce between archaeologists and metal detectors after decades of skirmishing.While amateur users of metal detectors have made some of the most spectacular archaeological finds of recent years, many archaeologists have regarded them as little better than hobby looters.Now, after months of negotiation, the two sides are set to announce a code of conduct. The code, which will be launched at the British Museum today, has been agreed by all the main met…

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Object lessons

2005/08/12 by Jane Morris
Originally published in The Observer Books

Gold & Gilt, Pots & Pins: Possessions and People in Medieval Britainby David A Hinton439pp, Oxford, £30In 1985, the historic Wiltshire village of Wanborough was under assault - not from tourists but from treasure hunters. A few weeks earlier, amateur archaeologists wielding metal detectors found some valuable Roman coins at the site of what later turned out to be a Romano-British temple. Correctly, they reported the find to their local museum. When the story got out, a gold rush began.Enthusiastic digg…

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