Treasure Hunting

Aug 07

Metal Detectorist Finds Pure Gold Cross From the 7th Century

This is literally the holy grail of finds (for me anyway).

Telegraph.co.uk is reporting that a treasure hunter, metal detecting his farm in Nottinghamshire, has found a 1,400 year old pure gold cross buried 12 inches under sod.

“The unnamed man focuses on raised ground because that is the most likely place to find treasure, as centuries ago the lower ground would all have been under water.

He said: “The farm had what I’ve come to call “quiet land”, swathes of ground where the detector scarcely makes a sound.

“The near-silence in the headphones might lull the uninitiated into losing concentration.

“It has the reverse effect on me as I know that very shortly the silence will be broken by a positive signal that tells me I’ve found what was almost certainly a lost object, rather than a tossed-away bit of junk.

“A signal just like that made me aware that I’d tracked down a very interesting site. A long period of silent, but enjoyable, detecting was suddenly interrupted by a positive signal.”

“Within moments I was holding a lovely Saxon penny. And not long afterwards I came upon a patch of ground that unexpectedly gave me three or four signals within the space of a few minutes. All turned out to be fragments of what must have been a beaten copper plate.”

“Then, thinking I’d located another piece of the plate, I listened to a very subtle and mellow signal.

“The rich ploughsoil was very loose and I was soon probing beyond twelve inches.

“Instinctively I put down the digger and scraped gently at the soil with my gloved hand.

“Then I made contact with a piece of metal that made me want to remove my glove. It seemed warm, almost alive, to my touch.

“My fingers closed on it and when I opened them I was gazing down, literally with my jaw dropped in astonishment, at the most wonderful find I’ve ever recovered.”

The cross is made of 18 carat gold, decorated with stunning details and intended to be worn as a pendant. It measures just over an inch long and is set with red gemstones. The red stones are among the world’s most ancient gems and were used by ancient Greeks who called them “granatum,” the same word they referred to pomegrante seeds with. The cross is almost certainly English made, with gold that was probably melted down from Merovingian French coins.