Of Ages Lost: Treasures of a Dark Age

Huge Anglo-Saxon Gold Hoard Found
From The BBC

The UK's largest haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure has been discovered buried in a field in Staffordshire.

Experts say the collection of 1,500 gold and silver pieces, which 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 Crown. Terry Herbert, who found it on farmland using a metal detector, said it "was what metal detectorists dream of". It could take more than a year for it to be valued. Leslie Webster, former keeper at the British Museum's Department of Prehistory and Europe, said: "This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries.

"(It is) absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells." The Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels are intricately illuminated manuscripts of the four New Testament Gospels dating from the 9th and 8th Centuries.

'Just unbelievable'

Mr Herbert, 55, of Burntwood in Staffordshire, who has been metal detecting for 18 years, came across the hoard as he searched land belonging to a farmer friend over five days in July. The exact location has not been disclosed. "I have this phrase that I say sometimes; 'spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear', but on that day I changed coins to gold," he said. "I don't know why I said it that day but I think somebody was listening and directed me to it.

Duncan Slarke, Portable Antiquities: ''It is a hugely important find''

"This is what metal detectorists dream of, finding stuff like this. But the vast amount there is just unbelievable."

BBC correspondent Nick Higham said the hoard would be valued by the British Museum and the money passed on to Mr Herbert and the landowner. A total of 1,345 items have been examined by experts, although the list includes 56 clods of earth which have been X-rayed and are known to contain further metal artifacts. This means the total number of items found is likely to rise to about 1,500. Following the initial find, Alex Jones, director of Birmingham Archaeology and his colleagues were invited to excavate the site, Birmingham University said.

Terry Herbert: "Is there anything better than this to be found?"
Mr Jones said it was fantastic news for the region and raised the importance of heritage research. "Being a partner in one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries of our time is something we can all be proud of," he said. Experts have so far established that there were at least 650 items of gold in the haul, weighing more than 5kgs (11lb), and 530 silver objects totalling more than 1kg (2.2lb) in weight. Copper alloy, garnets and glass objects were also discovered at the site. Duncan Slarke, finds liaison officer for Staffordshire, was the first professional to see the hoard, which contains warfare paraphernalia, including sword pommel caps and hilt plates inlaid with precious stones. He said he was "virtually speechless" when he saw the items. "I saw boxes full of gold, items exhibiting the very finest Anglo-Saxon workmanship," he added. Roger Bland, head of portable antiquities and treasure at the British Museum, said: "The most we can say is, I think we're fairly confident it is likely to be a seven-figure sum."

'Truly remarkable'

The collection is currently being kept in secure storage at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery but a selection of the items is to be displayed at the museum from Friday until 13 October. Dr Kevin Leahy, who has been cataloguing the find for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, said it was "a truly remarkable collection". He said it had been found in the heartland of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. "All the archaeologists who've worked with it have been awestruck," he added. "It's been actually quite scary working on this material to be in the presence of greatness." He said the most striking feature of the find was that it was almost totally weapon fittings with no feminine objects such as dress fittings, brooches or pendants. "Swords and sword fittings were very important in the Anglo-Saxon period," Dr Leahy added. "It looks like a collection of trophies, but it is impossible to say if the hoard was the spoils from a single battle or a long and highly successful military career. "We also cannot say who the original, or the final, owners were, who took it from them, why they buried it or when.

"It will be debated for decades."

Hoard Shines Light on Dark Ages
By Dr Michael Lewis
Deputy head of Portable Antiquities Scheme, British Museum
From The BBC

This treasure paints a new picture of our past and the Dark Ages.

What makes it outstanding is the sheer quantity - we're talking about 1,500 objects, almost entirely precious metal. Normally you would expect a handful of objects each year of this quality for the period in question, which is the 7th Century. A metal detectorist finding just one of these objects would consider it the find of their life. To find 1,500 is bizarre and it would blow the average person's mind. Now, everybody wants to know who it belongs to and why it was put there. But those questions are tricky to answer. At the moment, we can say what it isn't, even if we can't say what it is. It's not associated with a burial, like Sutton Hoo was, for example.

Precious metal

After that, there are two main possibilities. The first is that this treasure has been purposefully deposited, like an offering to a god. But, from my 21st-Century perspective, I find it bewildering that someone could shove so much metalwork into the ground as an offering. That seems like overkill. The other possibility is it's a treasure chest that got lost, or they couldn't come back for it. That means they're not treasuring the objects as wholes, they're taking the precious metals off and keeping them. Most things we find from the Anglo-Saxon period are what we call "chance finds", in other words the things people lost, or hoards purposefully deposited, or finds from burials. But hoarding is more associated with the Viking period. Things like big coin hoards are more a 10th-Century sort of find. This is a strange phenomenon in this country for the 7th Century. People will now be working to understand when the material was deposited, then we'll look at what we know of the history - which is not a lot - to tie it down. The finds date from a wide period, which is unusual, so the first thing this may do is help us improve our dating of the Anglo-Saxon period. Much of what we know about this period is based on archaeology, not written evidence, because that written evidence is so scant. We've got the objects, but not the historical context. That's a problem because we understand the world based on what's written down, but we're not that good at understanding people from their material culture.

Rulers overlooked

Yet that's what we're trying to do here.

I don't think it's realistic to identify this with a particular individual. We'll probably never find the owners, although the best bet is a ruler from the kingdom of Mercia, where it was found. In this period some Mercian rulers, like Penda and Offa, are quite well-known to us. Penda is a bit before this period, and Offa is right at the end, so it has to be someone in the middle. But our historical sources are limited to people like the monk Bede, who wrote from a Christian perspective. The Mercian rulers at the time are likely to have been pagan, but they could have been overlooked by Bede even though they might have been important, because he wasn't interested in them - for whatever reason. So this will help us look back at those sources, and those historical figures, with more scrutiny than we did before. The Dark Ages were called the Dark Ages because it was seen as a period where, after Roman civilisation, somehow we went backwards in time. But this demonstrates there were still wonderful objects being produced, and produced in this country. It will take years, or decades, to get answers, and we still won't get all of them. We can't just ask questions about this hoard, either - we need to ask questions about how this hoard fits in with everything else we know.

Have we made assumptions elsewhere that aren't right? Those are the things we'd like to know about. It's very, very early days.