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My Treasure Diary - 14th August 2005
After a days solid rain yesterday, I woke up at 6.30am to find the sun had come out in earnest. Just what was needed as I had planned to go for a days metal detecting with my colleague Terry. After loading up the car with the equipment and making sure I hadn’t forgotten my flask of coffee I set off and picked up Terry from his home. Earlier in the week I had a new car delivered but it seems that even this one isn’t spacious enough inside as Terry’s head still reaches the roof……..
We arrived at the farm and Terry jumped out and went to see the farmer to let him know we were there and to ask which fields were available for us to detect on. After much discussion (i.e. me dithering) we decided to detect on a large field which had recently been ploughed and although uneven wasn’t too bad. Terry headed along the edge of the field and I decided to walk across the field upwards towards a rise. At the brow of the rise I was lucky enough to find a decent Rose farthing and then just a few metres away up popped a not so decent Roman sesterius coin
Considering I live in the heart of Roman East Anglia I have to say that my roman finds have been - well, almost non existent - so I was very happy to find this. Terry made his way up the rise towards me to ask how I was getting on - I showed him my finds and asked what he had managed to detect. “Coke and buttons” he said.
After a while on this field we decided to move to one on the other side of the road. It had been a field of barley - and now the majority of it was stubble about 10 inches high. Now Terry’s a big lad and can handle swinging his detector against stubble - but me? I’m a 5ft 2in female and within 20 minutes had had enough.
At the other end of the field was an area which hadn’t been harvested and in front of it was a fair sized barren area with virtually no stubble - guess where I headed ! I decided that as the area was not too big, to cover it extensively - I started to walk very slowly in lines, turn and then walk back overlapping the area I had just covered. This paid off as I quickly found a bag seal and then shortly afterwards a small lead token.
I had covered about half of the ground when I saw Terry walking back over to where I was from the other side of the field. At that moment I got a strange and iffy signal from my detector …..not bad but certainly not the “good signal” we all listen out for…hmmm I thought……is it worth digging this? Well, curiosity got the better of me so I dug a small spadeful of the soft soil and placed it to the side of the hole. A quick sweep of the detector told me the item was in the removed soil - so I picked up some in my hand and swept it over my detector coil just as Terry arrived next to me. “What have you got there” he said. “Dunno” said I
I broke the soil in my hand apart and there staring at us was a tiny, shiny gold coloured object.
“Its Gold!” said Terry.
Well……. I don’t take my specs with me when I’m out in the field detecting so I passed it straight to Terry to have a look at.
“Ooooooooooooooooh!” he said………….
It looked like someone’s foot in a roman sandal - but only the front half of one - what on earth could it be?
We made our way to see the farmer and tell him of this find and that it would need to be declared as potential treasure. He was intrigued by the find and like us had never seen anything like it before. I promised to keep him informed with what happens and what the outcome would be.
This farmer is really interested in the finds from his land - but many of the individuals who detect there do not make the time to POP along and show him their finds.
Terry and I have told him that once finds have been recorded we will make sure they are given back to him to keep. Unfortunately this won’t be the case for this wee gold find I doubt!
Sunday evening
When I arrived back at my home, I took some photo’s of the find and posted them on a couple of the online detecting fora as well as the Portable Antiquities Forum to see if anyone was able to identify what this very small artefact was. Also emailed my Finds Liaison Officer to let her know I had found an item which could fall under the Treasure Act.
I had no idea what was about to develop within a few hours…….
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Navigate for more: My Treasure Diary - 15th August 2005 119 Copper Alloy Fragment of a Sword or Dagger Sheath Mounting