A Brief History
On July 5, 2009, in an English field near the village of Hammerwich, a man looking for curios with a metal detector in a freshly plowed field found gold and silver objects dating back to the 7th Century.
Digging Deeper
Over the next 5 days he filled 244 bags with the gold and silver combat and arms related objects (such as adornments for weapons), but no female oriented jewelry and the like. At this point the lucky man and the land owner notified authorities and gave permission to excavate the site, which was done by Birmingham Archaeology (funded by English Heritage). In an area only 30 by 43 feet 3500 (mostly small) pieces were recovered. In 2010, the excavation area was expanded.
All but 10 items were declared part of the original hoard, created between the 7th and 8th Centuries. They main hoard is from the Kingdom of Mercia, an Anglo-Saxon culture, and the other 10 objects are thought to be unrelated from other Anglo-Saxon cultures.
Valued at a whopping £3.285 million (about $5.4 million) the landowner and metal detector hobbyist were allowed to split the proceeds from the sale of the items to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.
In 2012, 91 additional items were found, 81 of which the proceeds will revert to the same landowner and hobbyist. They along with the vast majority of the items are believed to have been purposely buried for safekeeping, and then scattered by plowing. An alternate explanation for the hoard is that it was buried as an offering to pagan gods.
You can see more about this treasure on You Tube, on the National Geographic website, and the websites for the Birmingham and Potteries museums, among others.
Although this hoard may be the biggest found in Britain so far, there have been others, and only time will tell what remains to be discovered. If you have some vacation coming, perhaps you can buy a metal detector and visit Merrie Olde England!
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Historical Evidence
For more information about an earlier similar discover, please see…
Hughes, Gwilym. The Lockington Gold Hoard: An Early Bronze Age Barrow Cemetery at Lockington, Leicestershire (Excavation at the Early Bronze Age Barrow Cemetary at Lockin). Oxbow Books, 2001.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="2838 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=2838">24 Comments
It would be interesting to see what other hoards are waiting to be found!
It would be cool to find something like this.
It makes you wonder what other places there are that are not discovered! It makes me want to explore every time I go on vacation!
i wonder what other crazy things lay undiscovered from ancient times
it makes me think what other cool things lay under the ground and it be sweet to be in on this and find it not only for the money but to learn about our past seeing it in person like this.
I wish there was some buried treasure in my backyard. I would gladly split a few million dollars.
Always wanted to find treasure
I actually watched a documentary on this find on the history channel. I can’t imagine how exciting it would be to just stumble upon such ancient treasure.
It would be so exciting and overwhelming to find such treasure. It is crazy to think that there are still treasures an ancient artifacts still out there waiting to be discovered. I have to wonder though will we ever find it all?
I think this the only time I have ever heard of a metal detector being worth the investment
I wish I had that kind of luck!
wow! that’s pure luck
I’m glad that he split the profits and the artifacts with museums. It would be sad to see history wiped out by someone’s greed.
More luck from this for less money than a lottery today.
How lucky, now this farmer is set for life!
Treasure hunting for sure would be my dream job!
I find it funny the original founder of the treasure notified the farmer and authorities, sounds like a straight arrow.
Wish that was my farm
I’m definitely not this lucky.
It’s nice that the man who found the treasure shared the sale money with the land owner
I wish I could be this lucky
it would be pretty awesome to find that sort of treasure, and kuddos to the man who found it and shared it
im glad that the man who accidentally found it got to keep some of the proceeds instead of the government or someone else just taking it which happens a lot of times now.
Amazing finds like this still happen today!