Stunning Days Detecting...

Pete e

Elite Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2019
Messages
732
Location
North Wales, UK
I did a deal online to sell a rifle to a guy, and while talking he mentioned he had some land which immediately made my ears !!!!! up.

Rather than ship the rifle and have a load of hassle with paper work, it was arranged I would take it over and have a days detecting as well.

I arrived Friday afternoon and the next morning, after sorting the rifle out, he took me over to a small building site where several Roman skeletons had been discovered. The archeologists had finished removing them previously, so the guy had gotten permission for me to detect over the spoil heaps and areas where the builders has moved spoil to level the ground ect.

Essentially, I would be detecting the areas that had already been disturbed. The soil was clay that was bone dry and rock hard, so was far from ideal..However as soon as I started detecting, the coins started to appear. Because of the dry conditions, nothing was deeper than six inches, so I think there would still be plenty left to find...

Towards the end of the day, I had a signal and unearthed a rock hard clay ball. It took me ages to get into the clay lump, in fact I ended up soaking it in water to soften it, but I am glad I did as it contained the nearly complete fibula in lovely condition, by far the best I have found so far...

So all in all a great day, and I finished with an open invitation to go back when the the rest of the field is developed..it's just a pity it's such a distance from where I live :-(

Edited to add the coins and Fibula brooch are Roman and I suspect will date to somewhere between about 54AD and 400AD..I am hoping to get a firmer date range when I get them identified ect. I suspect the key is Roman also, but not really sure at this point....
 

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When you said a near-complete fibula, I thought you meant the bone. Was going to ask if they missed part of a skeleton. Then I scrolled down. I know it's not uncommon to find things that old there, but it's still cool. I have to go across the country to have a chance at finding metal things that old.
 
Me too, I thought you mighta have got boned. Ha Ha. Your report described pretty much a dream hunt here across the pond. Pete congrats on all the amazing saves and good luck on your return. Mark
 
Thanks Fellas..

It was possibly the most successful days detecting I've had...

The term "Fibula" is sort of the generic name for a number of different styles of brooch from this period.

I have now been told this is a Roman Trumpet Brooch dating from the first or second century AD while the coins late from the 3rd and 4th century....the key is a Roman finger ring key, sort of a hybrid between a ring and a key, but not sure on the date range of that as yet..

And thanks again for the kind words

Peter
 
Excellent play by play report!
Awesome Finds.
Petrol is high but you should go there as often as possible.
 
Pete, well rescued from the spoil heap.

Thanks Doug!

I also found a rather rusty/ corroded fragment of what I believe is a small iron axe head..

There is an outside possibility it's actually the cutting edge off a late iron age iron socketed axe head...

Sadly there's not enough to see the remains of the socket to immediately confirm, but the FLO was quite excited when she saw the pics...I will hopefully be able to drop it off next week for confirmation or otherwise...
 

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Very coo finds. I'm kinda surprised though that the archeologists didnt bother to detect the ground themselves. Their lack of foresight is your gain!
 
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