So, on Christmas Day, you unwrapped your metal detector – the one you’ve wanted since you were 13. Now what?
Surely it’s only a matter of time before you find a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ship – like Basil Brown, the amateur archaeologist played by Ralph Fiennes in The Dig, the film about the Sutton Hoo discovery? Or are you more likely just to find a few bottle tops and tin cans?
There have been some spectacular discoveries in recent times that might turn your metal detector into a goldmine detector. Lots of them have been found by detectorists – many of them inspired by Detectorists, the BBC series starring Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones as metal-detecting amateurs.
With lockdown and Covid restrictions, the naturally isolated, self-distancing, outdoor world of detecting boomed. Last year, the Government recorded 47,000 archaeological discoveries in England and Wales. Treasures included gold coins inscribed with the initials of Henry VIII’s first three wives, Saxon pennies and a Roman, copper furniture fitting.
Last week, it was announced that two detectorists on Jersey were entitled to a share of the £4.25m value of the 70,000 Iron Age coins they’d found in 2012. The 69,347 coins, found under a hedge in a mound of clay in Grouville, were thought to have been buried by a Celtic tribe fleeing Julius Caesar’s legions in the first century BC.
Also in December, an extraordinary, Roman rock-crystal jar, wrapped in eighth-century AD gold thread, emerged, magnificently restored, from a hoard of discoveries made in Scotland in 2014.
The jar is unique, not least because of the Latin inscription on its base, meaning, “Bishop Hyguald had me made,” suggesting the jar came from a church in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. To have an actual name is very rare, says Dr Martin Goldberg, principal curator of Early Medieval and Viking collections at National Museums Scotland: “So much of the past is anonymous, especially when you’re looking at very early history.”
The jar was part of the Galloway Hoard, the richest collection of rare, Viking-age objects ever found in Britain, acquired by National Museums Scotland in 2017. The hoard was legally dug up by Derek McLennan, a retired businessman, detecting on church-owned land in Kirkcudbrightshire. The hoard included silver jewellery and ingots, a gold ingot, a gold, bird-shaped pin, a silver-gilt Byzantine cup, an enamelled cross and silk from Constantinople.
It was a bumper year for archaeological finds across Europe. In November, an exceptional, silver and brass Roman dagger, or ‘pugio’, was revealed to the world. Found in Switzerland, it was probably brandished by a Roman legionary in a 15 BC battle with local Rhaetian tribesmen. After the battle, it was buried, probably by the legionary as an offering to the gods. It was discovered in 2019 by Lucas Schmid, an amateur detectorist and dental student. His discovery led to hundreds more on the same site – of Roman shields, coins, horseshoe nails and slingshots.
Last year was exceptional for detectorists in Britain, too. In the summer, a gold and garnet sword pyramid (which keeps a sword in its scabbard), thought to have belonged to a sixth-century AD Anglo-Saxon lord, was found by a detectorist in Norfolk. The garnet came from as far away as India or Sri Lanka.
And in the spring, a retired police officer on the Isle of Man, Kath Giles, dug up a Viking-era “piggy bank”, crammed with 1,000-year-old silver coins, 13 fragments of metal arm-rings and jewellery. It was Giles’s fourth significant discovery since taking up metal-detecting three years ago. In February, she discovered a hoard of gold and silver, Viking-age jewellery on the Isle of Man.
In November, the biggest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold coins ever found was unveiled by the British Museum. Found in West Norfolk, the hoard included 131 coins and four golden objects, including a gold bracteate (a stamped pendant) and a gold bar. The coins were mostly small, Frankish, 6th-century AD gold ‘tremisses’. The find also included nine solidi – bigger Byzantine coins, each worth three tremisses.
One of the detectorists who found this hoard had been investigating the site for six years. This anonymous detectorist was acting perfectly legally.
But a second detectorist, David Cockle, a former policeman, also digging at the West Norfolk site, kept his discovery secret and sold 10 of the coins illegally for £15,000. He was jailed for 16 months and dismissed from the police.
Cockle’s fate shows how strict the legal controls are on detecting – and how careful you must be with your Christmas present.
The two golden rules, according to a spokesman for the National Council of Metal Detecting, are “Do not trespass. Obtain permission before venturing on to any land.” (Of course, you are allowed to investigate your own land to your heart’s content.) The Council spokesman goes on to say, “This includes parks, public spaces, woods, common land and public footpaths. Beaches are a good place to detect and Crown Estate and Scottish beaches are generally fine. However, please double-check before travelling as on some, detecting is not allowed.” You must never detect on protected historical sites.
If you are lucky enough to find something historical or valuable, you must report all unusual finds to the landowner. The landowner owns everything found on their land.
Things get more complicated if your find is classified by the Treasure Act 1996 as ‘treasure’. Treasure includes: metal objects that are 300 years old or older and made from at least 10 per cent precious metal, not including coins; any prehistoric object where any part is made from precious metal; objects less than 300 years old, made substantially of gold or silver, which have been deliberately hidden with the intention of recovery, and whose owners or heirs are unknown.
Treasure objects are Crown property and don’t belong to the finder or the landowner. You must report them to the local coroner. If the find is confirmed as Treasure Trove, you’ll be offered an ex-gratia payment and the object will be allocated to a museum. If the find isn’t Treasure Trove, you’ll get it back.
At the moment, the Norfolk coroner is investigating whether that great West Norfolk hoard is in fact treasure and so belongs to the Crown.
East Anglia is one of the richest areas for metal-detecting in the country, thanks to the ancient civilisations that flourished there. Sutton Hoo, which featured in The Dig, is in Suffolk.
Most of Britain has been heavily settled for millennia, though, inevitably, remote, uninhabitable sites are less likely to be good hunting grounds.
And there’s still plenty more out there. The boom in finds under Covid restrictions shows there isn’t a shortage of treasure: the more you look, the more you’ll find.
If you’re lucky, you’ll even expand the understanding of British history. In 2004, Brian Malin, a detectorist, came across a jar of coins in Oxfordshire, inscribed with the name Domitianus. The only other Domitianus coin was found in France a century ago. It was thought to be a hoax because no Roman emperor called Domitianus had been heard of.
