A decade after discovering a huge treasure trove of nearly 700 gold and silver artifacts in a field in England, archaeologists have revealed the treasure’s origin and other interesting details.
In 2009, an amateur treasure detector discovered a huge treasure in a field in Staffordshire, England.
This treasure includes nearly 700 special artifacts found in 4,600 fragments. In total, there were nearly 4kg of gold and 1.7kg of silver, according to CNN.
After 10 years of detailed research, archaeologists have revealed detailed information about hundreds of these gold and silver artifacts. According to the Guardian newspaper, about 80% of the nearly 700 artifacts identified were weapons used in wartime, most of them swords.
There is also a gilded silver hat. Helmets from the Anglo-Saxon period are extremely rare in Britain and this is only the fifth one discovered to date.
Archaeologists say these artifacts were created between the 6th and 7th centuries, then buried between 650-675 AD. The latest information was revealed in the book “Staffordshire Warehouse: An Anglo-Saxon Treasure” published last week.
The artifacts are what remains from the “holy war of the dark ages” in which Pagan leaders fought against Christian kingdoms. The artifacts found bear both Pagan and Christian symbols.
Researchers believe that the kingdom of Mercia in today’s English midlands obtained the above treasures from kingdoms such as Northumbria, East Anglia and Wessex.
This collection of Anglo-Saxon antiquities was hailed by researchers as “one of the greatest discoveries of British archeology”, according to the Daily Mail.
This huge treasure was discovered by an amateur metal detector named Terry Herbert. At that time, he used a metal detector worth only 2 pounds that he bought from a fair to detect in a field near Lichfield (UK) owned by a farmer named Fred Johnson.
This treasure was sold to museums for nearly 3.3 million pounds and the money was divided equally between Terry Herbert and the field’s owner, Fred Johnson.
