Michigan researchers find Hellenistic gold

Obverse (Photo: Susan Webb)

Props to my friends at Tel Kedesh in the northern Galilee, who last week found the heaviest gold coin ever discovered in Israel, as the UM News Service reports:

Sharon Herbert and her team were wrapping up their dig at the Tel Kedesh site in Israel, sweeping the site in the 140-degree heat, when a student showed University of Michigan doctoral instructor Lisa Cakmak what he first thought was a gold candy wrapper.

The candy wrapper turned out to be what researchers believe is the heaviest and most valuable gold coin ever found in Israel, according to Herbert, director of the U-M Kelsey Museum of Archeology and co-director of the dig.

Dating from the 14th year of Ptolemy IV (191/190 BC), the coin bears the face of a Ptolemaic queen and weighs nearly an ounce (28 grams). The VOA has a long story about the find, including interviews with directors Sharon Herbert (Michigan) and Andrea Berlin (Boston).




Speaking as a very amateur coin nerd, this is a very cool find. Although I always hate it when gold or coins are in the news, because we archaeologists work so hard to convince people that finding gold is not the point of archaeology and in fact never happens. As Sharon says, it's actually bizarre to find something like this:

"It was pretty surreal," Herbert said of the remarkable find. "I have been digging for 30 years and never found a gold coin. It was found in a wall, believed to be a kitchen wall, that we had first uncovered in 1999 and cleaned every dig season since."

The reverse (Photo: Susan Webb)

I worked at Kedesh in 2006 - the site, being right on the border between Israel and Lebanon, has a great view of whatever explosions are happening in the region at the moment. The dig has focused on the large Persian/Hellenistic administrative building on top of the mound, which has revealed quite a number of surprising finds, like what is perhaps the oldest mosaic floor in Israel and a huge collection of bullae (stamp seals that tell us a lot about ancient trade and administration). The dig is now wrapping up for the forseeable future. The coin, which in usual style was found in the last week of excavations, is a nice codicil to a decade of really great archaeology at Kedesh. Congratulations to Sharon, Andrea, and everyone else on the team!

The Staffordshire Hoard Revealed

The hoard was revealed this morning, and it's a doozy: over 1,500 items, 5 kg of gold, and 2.5 kg of silver. Metal detectorist Tony Herbert called in experts after finding the first 500 pieces, and archaeologists uncovered the rest. They suspect there may be more yet buried. The location of the find, of course, is being kept fairly tightly guarded.

The BBC article is here, along with a photo gallery. A Flickr page has over 600 photos for you serious gold geeks out there. It's stunning stuff.

Conservator's comments here and video of the excavation here, behind short ads. (BBC won't allow embedding until October.) They apparently haven't cleaned many of the objects yet, which you can see in the photographs.

You can't highlight a find like this without also talking about the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme. The PAS is a system of voluntary reporting of archaeological finds - instead of fighting the hobbyists and metal detectorists, the government decided to recruit them to report what they found, and where. Over 140,000 objects have been recorded so far (you can see some especially interesting ones here). The project is administered by the British Museum and was fully funded in 2006.

Unlike many countries, English common law allows the finder to keep archaeological objects. What the PAS does is encourage finders to record the provenance of objects and make information about them available to the public. It has helped promote education about and public involvement in archaeology on a wide scale. Read about the history of the project here.

Finds like the Staffordshire Hoard are governed by the Treasure Act 1996, which is the exception to the common law: it requires finders of gold and silver artifacts over 300 years old to report them to the government within 14 days. Local or national museums can take possession of the objects, but they have to pay the landowner and/or discoverer the market rate for the finds.

The Hoard was declared "treasure" today by the Staffordshire Coroner, which everyone expected: the declaration was needed for the British Museum to keep the objects. Tony Herbert and the unnamed landowner, however, will split the reward for the treasure and are likely to become very rich men.

The Staffordshire Hoard: Unveiling Tomorrow

According to the Beeb, a huge hoard of gold objects from the 6th to 8th centuries was found in July under a field in Staffordshire. Their ownership is yet to be decided, but in the meantime the hoard will be unveiled to the public tomorrow at the Birmingham Museum. Birminghamnewsroom.com reports:

A discovery that will redefine the Dark Ages is to be unveiled at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery tomorrow (Sept 24).

The Staffordshire Hoard is a stunning find of Anglo-Saxon gold discovered earlier this year. It is the largest such hoard ever found and of international importance.

It will be presented for the first time during a press conference at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery tomorrow (Sep 24) at 11.30am.

Experts will be on-hand to talk about the discovery and how it will help rewrite history. Important pieces of treasure will be on show and available to photograph.

Artefacts from the Hoard will be on display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from Friday September 25.

Stay tuned for more! Hopefully there'll be juicy pictures in the press tomorrow. Any English readers who care to report from the press conference?