Looks like a guy with an old metal detector found one of the most significant hoards in the history of these Isles but I'm wondering..Irish law generally is derivative of English law and if that had been found here, automatically it would belong to the state. The finders wouldn't be allowed sell it or keep it, it'd be taken and examined and put on display. Can anyone explain the 'treasure' caveat that I'm reading in the articles about this? as in they aren't artifacts(yes they fucking are!!) but they're treasure?

not begrudging them their find, fair play to them but better it went on display than in some rich guys private collection where nobody can see them no?

here's the article...

A massive hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver found by a metal detector enthusiast beneath a field in Staffordshire is so significant that it is has been likened to the discovery of a “new Book of Kells”.

The haul of at least 1,345 items was officially declared to be treasure by a coroner this morning and will now be valued by a committee of experts.

Dr Roger Bland, head of portable antiquities and treasure at the British Museum, said: “I can’t say anything other than we expect it to be a seven-figure sum.”

The cache - the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold yet found - was hailed today as “a fantastically important discovery”.

video here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 272058.stm

The haul was found by metal detectorist Terry Herbert (55), just below the surface of a cultivated field in south Staffordshire in July.

South Staffordshire coroner Andrew Haigh said: “This is a magnificent find, both in terms of its content and its likely history.”

Dr Bland told the inquest in Cannock the significance of the find was “only beginning to dawn” on the small number of experts who have examined it. “It is at least as significant as any of the major discoveries of this period that have been made in the past," he said.

Conceding it may be difficult to establish the story which lies behind the astonishing find, Dr Bland added: “It is a fantastically important discovery. It is assumed that the items were buried by their owners at a time of danger with the intention of later coming back and recovering them.”

Archaeologist Dr Kevin Leahy said none of the experts involved in the discovery had seen anything like it before.

He told a press conference at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery: “These are the best craftsmen the Anglo Saxons have got, working with the best materials, and producing incredible results.”

Ian Wykes, head of Staffordshire County Council’s historic environment team, said some of the objects - many of them related to warfare - were found lying on top of the soil.

Archaeologists were “fairly confident” there was no more treasure buried at the site, he added.

Dr Bland said the hoard - thought to date back to between 675 and 725AD - was unearthed in what was once the Kingdom of Mercia. “I think wealth of this kind must have belonged to a king but we cannot say that for absolute certain,” he said.

A total of 1,345 items have been examined by experts, although the list includes 56 clods of earth which have been X-rayed and are known to contain further metal artefacts, meaning the total number of items is likely to rise to around 1,500.

More than 30 other objects found with the hoard have been deemed to be of modern date and were not found to be treasure.

Dr Bland confirmed that copper alloy, garnets and glass objects were discovered at the undisclosed site, but the “great majority” of the treasure was gold or silver.

Experts have so far established that there are at least 650 items of gold in the haul, weighing more than 5kg (11lb), and 530 silver objects totalling more than 1kg (2.2lb) in weight.

Dr Bland said the Staffordshire find was quite different from the Sutton Hoo burial site, which was uncovered in Suffolk in 1939.

The finder of the haul and the owner of the land have agreed to split the proceeds of the sale of the artefacts, which include sword pommels and at least two crosses.

Mr Haigh heard just 30 minutes of evidence before deciding that the haul should be formally classed as treasure.

Expressing hopes that the collection will eventually be bought by a museum and go on display in Britain, preferably in the West Midlands region, the coroner said: “This is a massive and fantastic find.

“These seem to be largely male items, probably military-linked items. Having heard the evidence, it is clear to me ... that these 1,345 items should be considered to be treasure.”

Archaeologists have said the discovery in Staffordshire is so significant that it is akin to the discovery of a “new Book of Kells”.

Mr Herbert, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, has described unearthing the haul as “more fun than winning the lottery”.

“My mates at the (metal detecting) club always say that if there is a gold coin in a field, I will be the one to find it. I dread to think what they’ll say when they hear about this,” he said.


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king49.htm

He found it, it should be his. Funny that today I went to a castle/museum built by a multimillionaire guy and filled with pieces of his own collection. It was extremely organized, clean and beautiful place, way better than any of the local museums founded by the state.

BTW, that is a totes awesome finding.

sorry..i'll get it now.

Link added.

Oh well, he agreed to be paid and split with the land owner, that's quite fair. It's incredible the amount of archealogical sites in the UK. I remember watching in History Channel an old lady who could tell if the skeleton belonged to a Celtic or Germanic person by looking at the ankle bone, they had slightly different structure.

Are Celtic and Germanic not roughly the same thing? that was always my understanding..obviously not..

It's just strange they're allowed sell it. Hope it goes on display somewhere..I know the Book of Kells was taken off the kid who found it here in the 70's. It's on display in Trinity College here in Dublin. It's a stunningly beautiful boom if you're ever here you should see it.

They are in the sense both are tall, pale and relatively robust indo-europeans. I could say war-like, but thats bullshit to make one people sound more barbarian than the other, and everybody at the time was very war like. But language wise the celtic family seems a bit closer to italic languages (like latin), while the germanic ones to slavic. And I guess the saxons that came from southern Denmark and nothern Germany would deal with different terrains and were different kind of shoes that would make they feet develop slightly different from their celtic distant cousins.

Well, the guys didnt took the old lady opinion for granted, they did some DNA tests that agreed with her opinion.

Funny because I'd agree..Irish(as in Gaelic) is the same as Scotch Gaelic, but is really similar to Welsh&Cornish, but strangely has a lotta similar words with the same meanings, both phonetically and wriiten in French, Italian even Spanish. Even though we're told the Celtic tribes were mostly of Germanic origin, in Ireland it's understood that we were originally inhabited by a tribe called the Milesians which were from Spain, but DNA testing in a countrywide survey found(on the east coast certainly) that we're mostly all of Viking/Danish descent. We'll never know. Guess it's all a melting pot but the language aspect is really interesting in the similarities.

LOL WUT? What is recognized as "celtic culture" is very, very ancient. Many greeks historians were aware of celtic tribes all over europe. Here is a map showing were celts lived.



Yes, there were celts in Turkey! And as you can see, many celtic tribes in what today is France and Germany would border germanic tribes and also the romans in nothern Italy. But with the expansion of the roman empire and later the germanic tribes, the celts lost a lot of terrain. Later around year 900 the vikings would sail to Ireland and Scotland where they would wreak havoc at first but later be absorbed.

But yeah, The celts didnt descent from the germanics, although their share a common indo-european background.

lol

That style of jewelry is soooooo 2,700 years ago.

I think if it is declared treasure the original finder gets significantly more compensation. If its just of historical significance, he'd still have to turn it over but wouldn't necessarily be given much money.
(if I'm remembering a Time Team Special on treasure hunters correctly)

I thought a number of us Celts came from Scandinavia too.

Is this wrong?

Well, it is, but it's an understandable confusion . Who came from Scandinavia were viking raiders around 1000 AD that settled in both Scotland and Ireland, they even founded Dublin, but were later absorbed and the celtic identity prevailed, so yeah, a lot of nowdays "celts" there probably are "mixed" having some scandinavian non-celtic ancestors also.

By the way, vikings is used as the a general term for the many germanic tribes that lived in Scandinavia and were roughly isolated from the roman culture for longer than the 1st wave of germanic people (goths, saxons, franks, vandals, etc)

Good knowledge.