Consumer Reports blog:
Terry Herbert, 55, a jobless man on welfare, used his metal detector on a Staffordshire field to find a valuable hoard of ancient gold and silver artifacts that has been called one of the most important finds in British archaeology, according to a report released yesterday.
Experts have valued of the cache at a minimum of 1 million pounds, or $1.6 million. By British law, Herbert could receive half that amount, which he says he will share with the owner of the field. The treasure includes 11 lbs. of gold and 5.5 lbs. of silver.
Chris in Paris at AmericaBlog:
This must have been a day to remember for the amateur. After years of searching, he found what many consider one of the greatest modern historical finds in the UK.
“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 five kilos of gold – three times the amount found in the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939 – and 2.5 kilos of silver, and may be the swag from a spectacularly successful raiding party of warlike Mercians, some time around 700AD.”
TPM has a slide show
The collection of 1,500 gold and silver pieces, found by Terry Herbert in Staffordshire, may date to the 7th century, is unparalleled in size and worth “a seven figure sum”. It has been declared treasure by South Staffordshire coroner Andrew Haigh, meaning it belongs to the British Crown. Terry Herbert, who found it on farmland using a metal detector, said it “was what metal detectorists dream of”. It may take more than a year for it to be valued. The treasure will revolutionize understanding of the Anglo-Saxons, a Germanic people who ruled England from the 5th century until the Norman conquest in 1066.
The Mercian rulers at the time are likely to have been pagan, so this will help archaeologists look back at the dark ages, and those historical figures, with more scrutiny than ever before. The Dark Ages were called the Dark Ages because it was seen as a period where, after Roman civilization, somehow culture of the era went backwards in time.
The Staffordshire Hoard organization will not reveal the exact location of the find, to prevent looting, but says it “lay at the heart of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia” in an area now known as South Staffordshire. “The quantity of gold is amazing but, more importantly, the craftsmanship is consummate,” said archaeologist Kevin Leahy, who cataloged the find. “This was the very best that the Anglo-Saxon metalworkers could do, and they were very good.”
Emily Yoffe at Slate on metal detecting in general:
The modern history of metal detecting is ignominious. Alexander Graham Bell used an experimental model in 1881 in order to locate the assassin’s bullet lodged in President James Garfield. Unfortunately, no one remembered that Garfield was lying on a mattress with newfangled metal coils, causing the machine to emit a continuous whine, resulting in failure to accurately locate the bullet. Garfield’s heart gave out when doctors cut into him. (Read more about that here.)
The beep of the metal detector, like the car alarm, the busy signal, and the colicky baby, belongs in the catalog of irritating sounds. The booklet that came with my Tracker IV instructed me to study the different tones emitted by the machine so I would know the kind of metal being indicated. But I could never keep straight whether the chirp that resembled a dying sparrow meant iron or the drone like that of a truck backing up meant copper.
It was time to find Civil War artifacts. The three of us trooped off to a wooded area behind a public school near where I knew Union soldiers had camped. A man who lived a few houses down told me that a workman once asked if he could metal detect on that property and had found belt buckles and eating utensils. The woods were muddy and swarming with mosquitoes. I turned on my Tracker IV and it started emitting chirps and beeps—it sounded like I had discovered a satellite outpost of Fort Knox. But every time I dug I turned up a hole filled with rocks and worms and roots. Occasionally there would be the pop-top of a beer can. As the salesman predicted, within minutes my daughter was begging to be allowed to go to the playground. She and my husband abandoned me to my attempts to contract West Nile virus.
After this episode I realized I needed help. I turned to my neighbor, Philip Dobak, a retired physicist and known metal detectorist. He told me one of his latest neighborhood finds was a 2,000-year-old Hebrew coin. I had a sinking feeling that I was now going to have to tell his lovely wife that Phil needed a neurological exam, when he ran across the street and returned with the coin. I was relieved to see it was hanging from a chain and mounted in the center of a silver Star of David. I asked to look at the rest of his treasures and he brought out a 4-inch-square box spilling over with a decade’s worth of found objects.
[...]
Despite my newfound expertise, without Phil my further forays were a bust. A trip to a friend’s yard where my daughter had dropped a ring the year before resulted only in the discovery of the sewer pipe. An attempt to find my editor’s wife’s lost engagement ring at a playground turned up one rusted nail. By this time my daughter was not only bored with metal detecting, she was appalled. On the way to the car from the playground I tried detecting on the grassy sidewalk strip.”Stop it, Mom, someone might see you,” my daughter said.
“But you’re the one who wanted a metal detector,” I said.
“I know, but I don’t like it. Please stop. This is your last beep, Mom. I don’t care if it’s the world’s best beep, just stop.”
