Senua's artifacts were discovered in September 2002 in a field near Baldock, Hertfordshire, England, by Alan Meek, retired photographer and member of a metal-detecting club. Mr. Meek has been kind enough to share his story, which is excerpted here from the seven-part series in the metal-detecting magazine The Searcher. The precise location of the field and the identity of the landowner are being kept confidential.

'A Very Significant Find'
By Alan Meek

I used to think that 'for me - the earth moved' was about as good as words could get. But for long-term marvellous feelings, I have to say that having a boxful of goodies I found last Sunday in a field in Hertfordshire, described as 'a very significant find' by Ralph Jackson of the British Museum, is about as good as I'm ever likely to hear.

Let’s go back a bit - well, just a few days is all it is. I’ve been detecting for quite a while with The North Herts Charity Detector Group, (we support the Garden House Hospice, in Letchworth by giving a few pounds each for every day we detect, and a third of the value of any find over £50) - and if Andy, our group organiser, has one of his sites available for Sunday, he gives me a call sometime Saturday. And I, not being as young as I was twenty years ago, go to bed a bit earlier that I otherwise might.

And then, not much over an hour and forty-five miles of mostly A1 later, I’m parked by the field edge, in incredible October sunshine, drinking a mug of coffee with half a miniature of scotch - this is always a marvellous idea at the time, but it does tend to keep me detecting near a hedge for an hour or so - while I wait for everybody else to arrive. There were seven or eight of us, almost a full turn-out, it being one of our best sites. We'd exchanged greetings; those who'd found something decent since we'd last met had done the bit of understated bragging we all expected of each other, and those who hadn't been anywhere, hadn't found anything, and hadn't even got the T-shirt, pretended to be casually unimpressed. And then it was, as it has to be, everybody for himself - or, in our group, herself.

It is a marvellous field; the centre, or very close to it, of a great deal of Roman, and earlier, activity, and it'd been kind to all of us over the years. And quite soon, we were spread pretty much across the field. Some where they’d had finds in the past; some following a line which might’ve been a footpath between two points which could have significance, and I, not too far into the field, where I’d been lucky before, and importantly, quite close to a hedge.

A couple of hours, maybe a bit more, went by. The detector swing takes over by itself after a while, especially if the ground is flat and clean, as this was. The mind, relaxed, but monitoring the little blips and chatters, listening, waiting, for one which could translate into a 'dig-me' signal, drifts and floats. 'How long to go before sandwich-time? - Where would I like a holiday? - sex - I wonder what it looked like here a couple of thousand years ago, who walked where I’m walking now - what a sod Saddam Hussein is – sex…'

I'd dug half a dozen 'little tickles' already. Two little minims, well they would be little - that’s why they were called minims after-all; a plough-chopped half of a larger coin, which could be almost anything at this stage, and didn’t much matter anyway, two 12bore remnants, an inch or so of a broken buckle, and a medium-sized pewter button.

I was still near the hedge, but I now felt comfortable enough to strike out a bit. So, from where I found the button, I choose a mark - a tree, on the far side of the field, and start walking directly towards it. And I keep detecting along that line until I get a signal or hit the tree, whichever happens first. Then, from there, I look for a new mark, and do it all again. My theory is that most detectorists walk either in straight lines, following, or at a right angle to something – furrows, stubble, whatever – or in a random, 'angels will guide me' sort of way. Sometimes they do, of course. Every detectorist knows that. And so does every fisherman and golfer.

My method though, has a secret little bit extra going for it, in that I'm almost always working a line that, however often the site has been trodden, has probably never been exactly, deliberately followed before. Maybe by approaching a find from a marginally different direction, a tiny extra edge of metal just might reflect one of those almost subliminal signals we all long for. And that’s how my particular angel operates.

Twenty paces I took - each as small as the diameter of the search head; on a field this well listened to, it was the inches between other people's swings where little glittery things might be still hidden. Fifty paces - on automatic now - 'You know, I could afford a couple of weeks in Bangkok, but well, no, maybe though, a new refrigerator would be nice' - seventy paces, eighty pac......... was that just a little 'end of swing' bleat I almost heard? Bangkok and fridges go on hold. I turn a touch left - slow, gentle swings, over and across, and back and round, fragmenting the few square feet where there just might be, yes, there it is, so soft it almost isn’t there.

Next: 'If I were really stupid, I could think that was a head'