The Guardian’s coverage of the PAS annual report launch: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/may/25/metal-detector-ancient-england-maps

This will be my last blog post for the foreseeable future.

Woodcut of a roman coin of Allectus (293-296AD)

Above: Obverse. IMP ALLECTVS P F AVG. Imperator Allectus Pius Felix Augustus.

Reverse. ADVENTVS AVG. Adventus Augusti. Allectus on horseback, his right hand raised, his left holding the hasta: before, a captive seated on the ground: in the exergue, S P C.

A very unusual coin, for Allectus at least, this particlar reverse is very similar to the now famous denarius of Carausius from the Frome Hoard, found by metal detectorist Dave Crisp. Roman Coins and Their Values, 4th revised edition, doesn’t list this particular coin, could it be a forgery inspired by the Carausius denarius, or just a very rare issue of Allectus?

Woodcut of a roman coin of Allectus (293-296AD)

Above: The classic coin of Allectus, the Galley reverse. RCV lists three different ‘Galley’ types.

See also: Coins of the Romans Relating to Britain, Plates I-VI

This is how hoards were found in the bad old days, before metal detectors. Smashed to pieces by the plough! Illustration from the book Coins of the Romans Relating to Britain By John Y. Akerman, Published 1836 (the book is reproduced in full at the link).

The list of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain is long over due an update, let’s bring the list of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain into the 21st century!

I’m not talking strictly about metal detecting finds here, but also coins, artefacts, hoards, brooches, weapons etc. that may have been excavated by archaeologists, found purely by chance by people digging drainage ditches or ploughing fields, uncovered by barrow diggers or by workman renovating old buildings.

Here are a few suggestions to get things started:

• The Mildenhall Treasure
• The Vindolanda tablets
• The Hoxne Treasure
• The Staffordshire Hoard
• The Coewulf Mancus
• The Sutton Hoo Treasure
• The Alfred Jewel
• The Lindisfarne Gospels

The items on the above list may not possess the supernatural abilities and properties of the original Thirteen Treasures, but they are certainly all magical in their own way.

Have your say, what are Great Britain’s Thirteen Greatest Treasures? leave a comment here, over on the forum or email me! If we can get together a good, interesting list, I’ll set up a poll so that everybody and anybody can vote for their favourites.

Photograph of a Roman dodecahedron from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schwarzenacker_Pentagondodekaeder1.jpg

Ever found one of these? Roman dodecahedra are believed to date from the second and third century AD, and range from 4 to 11cm in size. There are many theories about what they may have been used for, but I believe they were used as portable personal altars, possibly to a water god or spirit, others have said that they may have been used as candle holders. They are certainly one of the more strange items that you might uncover whilst metal detecting.

Roman dodecahedra are objects that may not be immediately recognizable to a lot of metal detectorists, and I have often wondered how many more of them might be out there! If you have ever found one, leave a comment or drop me an email.

Photograph of a Roman dodecahedron from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_dodecahedron.jpg

Other links:

• Roman dodecahedron forum thread
• http://www.romandodecahedron.com/
• Other images of Roman dodecahedra
• Wikipedia page

Dallinghoo/Wickham Market Hoard, 840 Iron Age gold staters of the Iceni tribe, found by metal detectorists in 2008. Photograph courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service have apparently begun a fund raising effort to secure the Dallinghoo/Wickham Market Hoard of 840 Iron Age gold staters found by two metal detectorists in 2008. The Dallinghoo/Wickham Market Hoard is one of the largest hoards of iron age gold staters ever discovered. The 840 gold staters date from around 40 BC–15 AD.

This metal detecting find received a fair bit of coverage in the news after a very public falling out between the two finders, Michael Darke (or Dark, depending on source) and Keith Lewis.

The BBC reports that Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service hope to display this fantastic metal detecting find at Ipswich Museum, but I have not been able to find any details or information about the fund-raising effort on their various web sites as yet, so if you want to support the campaign to keep this find in Essex, you could try getting in touch with Ipswich Museum directly:

Ipswich Museum
High Street
Ipswich IP1 3QH

Tel: 01473 433550
Fax: 01473 433558 [Wow, people still use faxes? wtf?]

I’ll update if an online fund-raising campaign is launched.

A group of archaeologists called in to excavate the find videoed the recovery of what has been called ‘the most stunning metal detecting find in history’ and are releasing the tapes on YouTube:

Expect to see plenty about this incredible discovery on the news all day today!

Though the numbers of fake pound coins in circulation seems to have decreased over the last few months, I still wonder what impact they are having on the economy. Time to go back to the good ole £1 note!

The easiest way to spot them is still the poorly executed edge inscriptions:

Wikipedia says: “A Royal Mint survey in January 2009 estimated that 2.58% of all £1 coins in circulation are counterfeit. This represented a considerable increase, up from 2.06% a year earlier, with the highest level of counterfeits being in Northern Ireland (3.6%) and London and the South East (2.97%) and lowest in Northwest England. Some estimates place the figure closer to 5%. An earlier survey in 2006 gave an estimate of 1.7%, which itself was nearly twice earlier estimates.

In July 2010, it was reported there were so many counterfeit pound coins in circulation (about 2.81% or about 1 in 36) that the Royal Mint were considering removing the current £1 coin from circulation and replacing it with a new design. Bookmakers Paddy Power offered odds of 6/4 (bet £4 to make £6 profit) that the £1 coin would be removed from circulation.

One common method of detecting counterfeits (if the sound of the coin on a table or the colour of the metal does not indicate something suspicious) is to check whether the reverse matches the edge inscription for the alleged year – it is extremely common for counterfeiters to get this wrong. Also, the writing on the edge may be in the wrong font and look very poor (see image), and the coins often generally look much less sharp and defined, lacking intricate details. Most counterfeit £1 coins in circulation are made of brass, and most lead copies are easy to spot and are quickly removed from circulation.”

Roman first century silver Leda mirror from the Boscoreale treasure, photo courtesy of the Louvre.

Another superb piece of roman silversmithing – the Leda and the Swan mirror from the Boscoreale treasure. This piece dates from the first century AD and was found in the remains of the Boscoreale Villa, a high status dwelling just outside Pompeii, that was destroyed in 79AD by the eruption of mount Vesuvius.

Blaydon metal detecting club member discovers a hoard of roman silver coins, Part 2

Blaydon metal detecting club member discovers a hoard of roman silver coins.

Can’t believe it took me this long to notice! The writing isn’t ‘eye visible’ on the coin itself, but the camera certainly seems to have picked it up. Time to break out the flatbed scanner and photoshop, wonder if I can enhance it enough to make it readable?

Carausius, Argenteus, London, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right, rev. clasped hands, 4.19g/6h (cf. RIC 549; cf. Shiel 14-20). Very fine and very rare £600-800

There was a near perfect example of this coin found amongst the 52,503 coins of the Frome Hoard, found by Dave Crisp. See The Frome Hoard Book, by Sam Moorhead, Anna Booth and Roger Bland, page 28 for more information about this very unusual coin and an interesting theory about the meaning of the letters ‘RSR’ beneath the clasped hands from Guy de la Bedoyere. Although, John Y. Akerman writing in Coins of the Romans Relating to Britain, 1836, says “It is difficult to assign an exact meaning to the letters RSR; but if conjecture be allowed, it seems highly probable that this coin was struck at Rutupia (Richborough in Kent).”

Wish I had the money for this one!

The auction takes place on the Sunday 5th and Monday 6th of December at the Grange Hotel, Charles Square, Bracknell, Berks, RG12 1ED.

Bids by e-mail : bids@londoncoins.co.uk,  or  snail mail to 4-6 Upper Street South, New Ash Green, Kent DA3 8JJ, phone 01474 871464 or fax 01474 872173. See www.londoncoins.co.uk for more info.

There will apparently be a 15% real terms cut in the schemes budget, but I think this just means no new staff, no pay rises and no increase to the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s budget in line with inflation for the next four years, but I’m not 100% sure on that, I’ll ask around. I guess this also means that the post of PAS education officer won’t be reinstated, disappointing, but given the level of cuts we have seen in other areas of government and the public sector, not wholly unexpected. [struck! See update below]

Ed Vaizey even tweeted that he had just met Dave Crisp, finder of the Frome Hoard. I think we have a fan in Mr Vaizey.

Update: Daniel Pett, the Portable Antiquities Scheme IT guy and archaeologist, posted on twitter that the scheme will now be supported by the British Museum’s own education team. No idea how to link to the message directly, so click the above and scroll down a bit.

Photograph by Andreas Praefcke from Wikipedia

Silver cup with Athena seated from the Hildesheim treasure, discovered on October 17, 1868 on Galgenberg Hill in Hildesheim, Germany. Dating from the first century AD, this cup may have been owned and used by the commander of the lost Varus legions.

• This image on wikipedia.
• The Hildesheim Treasure page on wikipedia.

These photographs are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Which means you can take them for use on your own web site etc. as long as they are properly attributed.

When I found it, I was absolutely convinced I’d found a Celt, but the British Museum later identified it as being an ancient Greek.

To Hanover 1867

A Queen Victoria ‘To Hanover’ gaming token or jetton, dated 1867. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of these were minted between 1837 and 1867 (at least the most recent date I have seen on one of these tokens or jettons is 1867, there may be later dated examples around, some are dated as early as 1830). The man on the horse is not St. George slaying the dragon, but the Duke of Cumberland on route to claim the crown of Hanover.

H.M.G.M. Queen Victoria

These photographs are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Which means you can take them for use on your own web site etc. as long as they are properly attributed.

Soho mint mark beneath Britannia's shield

Matthew Boulton and his Soho Mint also produced tokens for the Dutch East India Company. The millions of copper tokens salvaged from the wreck of the Admiral Gardener, wrecked on the Goodwin Sands on January 25, 1809, were produced at the Soho Mint on Matthew Boulton’s steam powered coin presses. Admiral Gardener was carrying 54 tons of the copper coins, which had been destined for use by the company in India.

These photographs are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Which means you can take them for use on your own web site etc. as long as they are properly attributed. I’ve already added a couple of them to Wikimedia Commons.

A four year old boy has found a gold 16th century reliquary with his grandfathers metal detector, what a fantastic story! Photographs of the late medieval gold reliquary can be seen at the above link, it’s sort of a poor(er) mans Middleham Jewel.

[Story originally posted on Twitter by various and sundry]

Update: Just to clarify, when I said ‘what a fantastic story!’ above I meant the bit about a four year old kid swinging his grandfather’s detector and finding something incredible, it wasn’t intended as a ringing endorsement of the Daily Mail’s reporting on the details of the find/valuation etc.

This very interesting document describes not only the Coenwulf Mancus and the various processes the British Museum used to examine and authenticate it, but also shows the other six ‘later’ Anglo-Saxon gold coins in the British Museum’s collection. There are only eight known ‘later’ Anglo-Saxon gold coins in existence, seven held at the BM and number eight is in a museum in France, or Belgium or somewhere, can’t remember.

Also, there was a great photo of a Coenwulf silver penny on page 37 of the November issue of The Searcher.

One of the most touching things about books like this are the personal notes about births, deaths and notable incidents made by the owners. This one also contains the recipes for folk remedies to various ailments.

Some information about John of Gaunt from wikipedia:

“John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, KG (6 March 1340 – 3 February 1399) was a member of the House of Plantagenet, the third surviving son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. He was called “John of Gaunt” because he was born in Ghent (in modern Belgium), Gaunt in English.

John exercised great influence over the English throne during the minority of his nephew, Richard II, and during the ensuing periods of political strife, but was not thought to have been among the opponents of the King.

John of Gaunt’s legitimate male heirs, the Lancasters (the other party in the Wars of the Roses, the Yorks, being the male descendants of his older brother, Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, and younger brother, Edmund), included Kings Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI. His other legitimate descendants included his daughters Queen Philippa of Portugal, wife of John I of Portugal and mother of King Edward of Portugal, and Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter, mother of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, through his first wife, Blanche; and by his second wife, Constance, John was father of Queen Catherine of Castile, wife of Henry III of Castile and mother of John II of Castile. John fathered five children outside marriage, one early in life by a lady-in-waiting to his mother, and four surnamed “Beaufort” by Katherine Swynford (after a former French possession of the Duke), Gaunt’s long-term mistress and third wife. The Beaufort children, three sons and a daughter, were legitimized by royal and papal decrees after John and Katherine married in 1396, with the proviso that they were specifically barred from inheriting the throne (‘excepta regali dignitate’). Descendants of this marriage included Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester and eventually Cardinal; Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland, grandmother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III; John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, the great-grandfather of King Henry VII; and Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots, from whom are descended from 1437 all subsequent Sovereigns of Scotland, and successively from 1603 Sovereigns England, of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the United Kingdom to the present day. The three preceding houses of English sovereigns from 1399 – the Houses of Lancaster, York and Tudor – were descended from John through, respectively, Henry Bolingbroke, Joan Beaufort and John Beaufort.”

Although the debate was quite short, a lot of interesting and controversial ground was covered. The transcript is well worth reading, being not only of importance to metal detectorists, but also should be of great interest to archaeologists and collectors of antiquities. The Portable Antiquities Scheme web site has also covered some of the debate here.

“The matter of the gold rings is as follows. Of the ancient Romans no one,—not to mention such as had once been slaves,—who had grown up as a free citizen even, was allowed to wear gold rings, save senators and knights,—as has been stated. Therefore they are given to those freedmen whom the man in power may select; although they may use gold in other ways, this is still an additional honor and distinguishes them as superior, or as capable, through having been freed, of becoming knights.”

“In this way Dacia became subject to Rome and Trajan founded cities there. The treasures of Decebalus were also discovered, though hidden beneath the Sargetia river, which ran past his palace. He had made some captives divert the course of the river and had then excavated its bed. There he had placed a large amount of silver and of gold and other objects of great value, that could endure some moisture, had heaped stones over them and piled on earth. After that he had let the river flow over them. The same captives were compelled to deposit his robes and other similar objects in neighboring caves; and when he had effected this, he made away with them to prevent their talking. But Bicilis, a comrade of his, who knew what had been done, was seized and gave this information.”

From the books of Dio Cassius on Project Gutenberg.

Another way of supporting the campaign to keep the Frome Hoard in Somerset is to buy the Frome Hoard book: The Frome Hoard by Sam Moorhead, Anna Booth and Roger Bland on Amazon.co.uk, a snip at £4.49 delivered. 50p from every sale of the Frome Hoard book goes towards the campaign fund and the cost of conserving the coins. Worth every penny of the cover price for the stunning photographs of the coins of Carausius alone!

Also, I’ll drop an email to those fine chaps at Thames and Field to see if they can help.

http://www.finds.org.uk/database/images/image/id/296472

The above links reveal the most interesting photographs of the Crosby Garrett Helmet yet released – the Crosby Garrett Helmet before restoration work commenced.

Prior to the sale, some had argued about whether the helmet was art or artefact, and that got me thinking about what differentiated the two. In the case of the Crosby Garrett Helmet I decided that what would seperate art from artefact would, for me at least, be the amount of filler (and therefore the amount of interpretation) used. The above photograph suggests that the amount of filler used in the reconstruction might not have been as great as I had previously believed.

Is the face plate, which I thought had been found complete and intact, sandwiched amongst the mass of metal bottom right?

A big thank you to both the PAS and Christies’ for making this image available.

There is still no word on who the buyer was or whether, as in the case of the Middleham Jewel, there will be a second auction. I wonder what the new owner’s intentions are at this point?

The current issues of both The Searcher and Minerva magazines apparently feature stories about the Crosby Garrett Helmet, so be sure to take a look at those. I haven’t managed to make it into town to buy them yet.

“Never before have so many ancient British coins been so easy to identify, so easy to study, so easy to enjoy. ABC catalogues 999 iron age coins, including 418 new types not shown by Van Arsdell in 1989. ABC describes and dates them, gives up to six references for each, estimates their rarity and shows every coin twice actual size, so that its distinctive differences can be seen at a glance. ABC took ten years to produce, has 256 fact-packed pages and contains 4000 superb coin photos, plus 500 other illustrations, diagrams, tables and maps.

ABC is a picture book, not a lecture book. “ABC is a remarkable achievement” says Prof. Miranda Aldhouse-Green. “It manages to combine scholarship and accessible information in a volume whose every page is interesting and whose writing style makes it fun to use.” ABC is a large hardback book (30 x 20 cm), light in style, heavy in weight (1.5 kgs) – “an indispensable aid to anyone wanting to identify British iron age coins” says Prof. Colin
Haselgrove – worth every penny of its £75 plus postage. Buy ABC direct from Chris Rudd.”

At £75 plus £10 postage and packing, it isn’t the cheapest book in the world, but when you consider that the next best guide is R. D. Van Arsdell’s book, which is out of print, (and will cost you at least £150 if you are lucky enough to find someone foolish enough to sell their copy) this book is going to be a fantastic investment for metal detectorists, coin collectors and archaeologists a like! And with Chris Rudd at the helm, you know the production values of this book will be fantastic! I haven’t been this excited about a book release in years!

Order Ancient British Coins by Chris Rudd on Amazon.co.uk

A rare Bronze Age founders hoard, buried in a pot in an Essex field, has been excavated by archaeologists after being discovered by metal detectorists. The excavation was recorded by 360Production who uploaded the following video to YouTube:

Laura McLean, Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, told the BBC that “This is a really exciting find and a good example of metal detectorists and archaeologists working together to uncover and record our history, making sure it is not lost forever”

Founders hoards are usually found scattered in the soil of ploughed fields, the vessel or bag they were originally buried in having perished in antiquity, to find one not only intact and in its original context, but also still in the pot, is highly unusual!

Well done to Mr J. Humphreys, the finder, and everybody else involved! Check out the story on the BBC website and the excavation video for further details.

At 37 metres (120 ft) high, Silbury Hill – which is part of the complex of Neolithic monuments around Avebury, which includes the Avebury Ring and West Kennet Long Barrow – is the tallest prehistoric human-made mound in Europe (Wikipedia)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11621802

BBC news reports that Silbury Hill may have been used as a fortification by the Anglo-Saxons. Anybody who has ever walked up the Silbury monument would agree that you would be hardpressed to find a more effective defensive position!

Great article and video on the Crosby Garrett Helmet from Channel 4 News.

But who was the buyer?

Coming soon: The Crosby Garrett Helmet: The Final Analysis. Probably won’t be published this week, because I’ll have someone read over it first, don’t want to get sued.

Lot Notes

This remarkable cavalry parade helmet, with its enigmatic features, is one of only three that have been discovered in Britain complete with face-masks. The others being the Ribchester Helmet, found in 1796 and now in the British Museum, and the Newstead Helmet, in the Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh, found circa 1905. The Crosby Garrett Helmet, found in Cumbria earlier this year is an extraordinary example of Roman metalwork at its zenith.

The Crosby Garrett Helmet sets itself apart by virtue of its beauty, workmanship and completeness, particularly the face-mask, which was found virtually intact. In addition, the remarkable Phrygian-style peak surmounted by its elaborate bronze griffin crest appears unprecedented. H. Russell Robinson, formerly the curator of the Royal Armouries, cites only one other fragmentary helmet found at Ostrov in Romania, dated to the second half of the 2nd Century A.D., in the form of a tall Phrygian cap. Representations of similar helmets can be found at the base of Trajan’s Column among the captured Dacian and Sarmatian armour (cf ., H.R. Robinson, The Armour of Imperial Rome, London 1975, pp. 134-135, pls. 409-410). The openwork eyes and facial features of the Crosby Garrett Helmet find their closest parallels with Robinson’s Cavalry Sports Type E helmets, and in particular with a helmet from Nola, in southern Italy, now in the British Museum, dated to the late 1st to early 2nd Century A.D., (ibid., p. 124, pl. 361). However, the rendering of the hair in large tight curls is comparable to that of the Belgrade mask, now in the Archaeological Museum in Belgrade, belonging to Cavalry Sports Type C, and dated to the 2nd Century A.D. (ibid. p. 115, pl. 326).

These helmets were not for combative use, but worn for hippika gymnasia, (cavalry sports events). The polished white-metal surface of the Crosby Garrett face-mask would have provided a striking contrast to the original golden-bronze colour of the hair and Phrygian cap. In addition, colourful streamers may have been attached to the rings along the back ridge and on the griffin crest. Arrian of Nicomedia, a Roman provincial governor under Hadrian, provides us with the only surviving contemporary source of information on cavalry sports events. He describes, in an appendix to his Ars Tactica, how the cavalrymen were divided into two teams which took turns to attack and defend. He suggests that the wearing of these helmets was a mark of rank or excellence in horsemanship. Participants would also carry a light, elaborately painted shield, and wear an embroidered tunic and possibly thigh-guards and greaves, all of which would contribute to the impressive spectacle. These events may well have accompanied religious festivals celebrated by the Roman army and were probably also put on for the benefit of visiting officials. The displays would have been intended to demonstrate the outstanding equestrian skill and marksmanship of the Roman soldier and the wealth of the great empire he represented.”

At the moment there is no central web site where you can go and see who is trying to raise how much and for what. Would there be support for a site that lists all on going, PAS related, fundraising appeals in one place and tells people how they can donate, who the primary contact is and who to make the cheque out to etc.?

The name for the site (that has been kicking around my head since the Crosby Garrett Helmet hit the headlines) would be PASt Appeals, or something similar, not sure I can use the PAS bit, might cause legal difficulties?

Would you support it? Leave a comment here or hurl me an email at the usual address.

The totals on the JustGiving web site stand at £8,051.22 donated online, plus £2,045.22 Gift Aid plus supplement. So we are about £410 up on yesterday. Right now, unless Tullie House Museum have received some big offline donations, things don’t look so good.