Last year, Barry Plasom, a 70-year-old resident of Norfolk County, found a small object in the vicinity of the town of Fakenham. “I mistook him for a bent bottle cap. I put the “lid” in my pocket and forgot about it until I got a better look at the find,”Mr. Plasom replied to questions from journalists.
Of course, the object turned out to be no lid, and Barry Plaza is not as simple as one might think: a 70-year-old retired sailor has been walking around the counties of East Anglia with a metal detector for a long time, he has many archaeological finds, including a large treasure of ancient Roman coins. Usually archaeologists have a negative attitude towards such "treasure hunters", but Barry Plasom is a conscientious citizen: after seeing the object better and realizing that the shine of gold is genuine, he passed the find to the appropriate authorities.
The small artifact turned out to be a real mystery for specialists, according to the BBC. It was easy to establish its age and origin - a similar jewelry technique (filigree) was widely used by Anglo-Saxon craftsmen at the turn of the 6th and 7th centuries. The object found near Fackenham is a typical example of filigree technique - an ornament made of gold wire, supplemented with tiny gold balls, and granulation, is soldered onto a gold "base".
The first riddle is the purpose of the item. Perhaps this is a detail of the hilt of an Anglo-Saxon sword, but experts continue to doubt. Usually such parts have small mounting holes, while the Fackenham artifact does not. As an example of what this detail might look like if it were part of the hilt, we can cite the reconstruction of a Lombard sword from the same period (VI-VII century), found in Castel Trozino, Italy.
The lack of mounting holes makes it difficult to identify the Fackenham artifact. But such a "trifle" would not be a reason for publishing news about the find in the media. In a special archaeological database (The Portable Antiquities Scheme), where British amateur archaeologists voluntarily enter information about the finds, the description of the artifact contains the following lines: “The object is almost triangular in shape and resembles the details on the hilts of swords from the funeral boat at Sutton Hoo and Staffordshire Treasure. " Further in the description, it is said about the differences that do not allow identifying the object: the absence of mounting holes and incomplete coincidence in the ornament and execution technique.
The mention of Sutton Hoo and the Staffordshire Treasure immediately turned the tiny gold artifact into a mysterious and promising find. The funerary boat of the Anglo-Saxon king, found at Sutton Hoo, is rightfully considered one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Great Britain, and the Staffordshire Treasure of the Anglo-Saxon era - more than 1,500 items of gold and silver, including weapons, dishes and jewelry - is the richest of found treasures.
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This is the main mystery of the Fackenham artifact. According to Andrew Rogerson, an archaeologist with the Norfolk Historical Heritage Service, "this is a fragment with no archaeological context."
Previously, in the vicinity of Fackenham, no traces of Anglo-Saxon habitation were found - no dwellings, no other signs of economic activity. However, in recent years, four objects from the Anglo-Saxon period have been found in the area, including a brooch and a belt buckle.
“Another find looks like a part of a sword hilt, but so far its true purpose remains a mystery. Obviously, the item she was decorating belonged to a person of high status - so were the items from the Staffordshire Treasure. And for us this is a real puzzle, which can only be solved by consistent collection of data on Anglo-Saxon settlements in East Anglia. Almost certainly people lived here, worked the land, there should have been traces of their activities. But finding ancient settlements will have to do a lot of research to understand how the Anglo-Saxons used the land in the area,”Rogerson said.
A small gold artifact from Fackenham may be a harbinger of a world sensation like the discovery of a rich Anglo-Saxon treasure - or remain for a long time nothing more than a piece of a historical puzzle of regional significance.
In March, the Norfolk County coroner will have to decide whether to assign the status of a treasure to the find, thereby transferring it to the British Crown, or to leave a single item in the collection of the lucky pensioner Barry Plasom. The first scenario is still more likely.