Thursday 24 September 2009

Staffordshire hoard

An amazing hoard of Saxon jewellery and sword fittings of the standard of Sutton Hoo has been found in Staffordshire.

It also made the front page of the BBC website, and there's a BBC article about it:
Experts said the collection of 1,500 gold and silver pieces, which may date back to the 7th Century, was unparalleled in size.

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 may take more than a year for it to be valued.
There is also a special website devoted to the Staffordshire hoard.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome craftsmanship detail at 1:08!

It's quotes like the one below that reinforce my opinion that some finds happen because someone from antiquity wants attention:

"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."

Yewtree said...

Yes I noticed that comment - very interesting.

Also it gives a whole new dimension to the reburial controversy - what if the ancient dead WANT to be displayed in museums?

Titus said...

Really excited by this, thanks for the links Yewtree.

Snoozepossum said...

"Also it gives a whole new dimension to the reburial controversy - what if the ancient dead WANT to be displayed in museums?"

LOL - that's the foundation of the comments that are going to HAD for their conference, as much as I'm skeptical of anything they don't agree with being included.

Statements about "going on a hunch", "can't say why I wanted to dig there", "circumstances kept moving me off the beaten path" and so on seem to keep cropping up from people connected with various sites. What I'd like to get going is a system for comparative evaluations of site-related UPGs that could actually be included in the overall handling of finds. Working on it!