From dirt to $5 million: The landowner and metal detectorist who stumbled about a 700AD hidden treasure
Over 1,300 years ago a trove of gold and silver artifacts that was buried in a field. To date it is the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure ever discovered.
A farm near the village of Hammerwich in Staffordshire County, England had been hiding a secret for over 1,300 years until one day in 2009 an amateur metal detectorist named Terry Herbert stumbled across some glittering fragments buried in the ground. He showed them to the landowner Fred Johnson who wasn’t sure what to make of them at first.
However, more and more fragments kept coming out of the ground. Archaeologists were called in and the area was secured. Since then, over 4,000 gold and silver pieces of metalwork have been found, making it the largest find of Anglo-Saxon artifacts of its kind discovered to date.
The Staffordshire Hoard: from dirt to $5 million
The massive find has been dubbed the Staffordshire Hoard, and it was acquired by the city councils of Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham with the help of public donations and grants. The complete haul was valued at 3,285,000 pounds, which was equivalent to around $5 million in 2009.
The money was split between Herbert and Johnson. “If anyone had told me that there was treasure in one of my fields I would have laughed at them,” the farmer told the BBC. Johnson shared that he’s tried to not let the windfall change him. “I still mix with the people I grew up with,” he said.
What does the Staffordshire Hoard consist of?
It took ten years of research and bringing all of the pieces together in order to better understand the Staffordshire Hoard before a final report could be presented. Once the fragments were all in the same room next to each other, experts were able to match individual fragments with one another like pieces of a puzzle.
In the end, they were able to put together about 700 individual items. There were religious objects like crosses and reliquaries, as well as objects of prestige such as pieces from books, saddles, sword pommels and a gilded helmet.
Based on the objects style of manufacture the lead archaeologist Chris Fern was able to identify four distinct phases within the hoard. The oldest dated to the 6th Century AD while the newest to between 630 and 660 AD, shortly before the hoard was buried.
Mystery still surrounds the Staffordshire Hoard
Despite the valuable insight the objects have given to researchers, they are still unclear as to how they got to where they were, as burying hoards was not a common practice at the time.
However, events from the time period around when the treasure was buried and in the area where it was located, the Kingdom of Mercia, my give some clues. In the year 655 AD, the last pagan Anglo-Saxon King of Mercia Penda was killed in battle. The period in the wake of his death was turbulent as there was a struggle for power in Mercia.
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