'A Very Significant Find'
By Alan Meek

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

Well, some people would've been satisfied I suppose - but me, I'm a bit greedy. So I put my treasure carefully and safely on a nearby large white flint, and, still kneeling, re-dug the spoil I'd just put back, 'til I was down to where I could relocate the scratchy signal I'd abandoned all those - well, just minutes ago. And in my mind, the best there might be still to find would be a few scraps of black silver which might fit somewhere on my statue.

Hang-on a minute - there was something else there too. More solid - cleaner, and very smooth. Anywhere, any time, that combination of audio and meter makes something happen - some chemical change - a back of the throat taste - a skin prickle - adrenaline probably - and maybe, if you've been lucky, you'll know what I mean.

Then I heard a voice, gentle, concerned, and from above me. 'Allo there, Alan - you all right, mate?' Cyril, one of our group, arriving late on site, looking across the field and seeing me, the oldest member, kneeling, half lying, with head and most of shoulders vanished into a hole... well, it could've easily been a find he didn't want to make that soon in the day.

'Hey, Cyril, no, I'm OK, but look at this.' The statue; more dry now, and more obvious. Cyril looked - an indrawn breath, then, 'Ber-loody hell.' Then 'Is there more still there? Can I have a listen'? His machine, latest and best, confirms what I already know, and certain now that this wasn't just one of your better than average days, we began to chip and scrape, very slowly, very gently, and very, very, carefully. And there, suddenly, the glint we all dream about. I have the photograph before me as I write this - and it still looks almost as if it could be the heavily embossed golden wrapping of an expensive christmas present. But it wasn't ...

And then there was another piece, a sheet of thin gold, and even through the encrustation, there was a pattern - and perhaps there were even figures. And then several more pieces lying together, like leaves, but longer, narrower, cut into crown-like shapes, and fanned slightly, like cards. The word 'diadem' came into my mind. And lying on them, attached it seemed, but probably only by earth and time, there was a thin gold chain, with a locket - maybe a locket, at each end. We stopped. We needed something other than just earth to lay these beautiful things on. I took off my track-top, and put it beside the hole, and we used that as storage space.

A little more scraping - just a centimetre or so. And then, just lying there, looking like yesterday, there was a huge, oval, golden brooch with a red, gold-mounted, intaglio in the centre. I lifted it from where it had lain for so long, and as I did, the intaglio fell out, into my hand. A truly heart-stopping moment. Magical beyond belief.

Then two more brooches or pendants, smaller, but not a lot, and one of them with a central intaglio too. It would be pointless to try to describe my feelings as I touched these pieces of ancient gold, as I lifted them into daylight they hadn't seen for something close to twenty hundred years. I'm not sure I had any real feelings left in fact. I looked at all this gold lying on my yellow sweater, and I thought how much better it would've looked if I'd worn the green one that day.

By now, the rest of the group had noticed that something a bit out of the usual run of things was happening, and began to drift towards us. As they watched, I lifted from the bottom of the hole, a little, silvery, hand and forearm - beautifully cast, and holding a - well, a discus shaped something. And moments later, lying on the recently dug spoil, Cyril found a similar hand and arm holding, well, something different anyway. I was later told that I several times muttered, 'and I actually filled the bloody hole in once.....'

Andy was now talking into his mobile. 'Alan, I've got Gil Burleigh, (the Local Archeological Adviser) - and he says please stop digging, and he'll be here in half an hour.' I think I stayed kneeling - I heard somebody say, 'poor sod's probably in shock.' Then Gil arrived, and it all got a bit more professional. He looked at what we'd found, exclaimed over it most gratifyingly - said how rare such a find was - and made me at least blush with pride by saying how marvellous it was that we hadn't brushed off even the loose soil.

Under Gil's guidance, we - there was a small team now -- gently brushed and teased away microns of soil, soil which had been untouched forever, except by those who had buried the beautiful objects now lying on my sweater. And we found 'several decorated votive silvered bronze plaques in a very fragile condition' (I quote from his later report).

Whatever scene had been enacted exactly where we stood - for whatever reasons such treasure had been consigned to the ground - with whatever hurry or slow ceremony - whoever had lived or died because of it; - I, by finding it - by digging it up, had somehow changed ......, what? I don't know of course. But I do know, that for me, that field will never be quite the same again - will never again be just 'a jolly good site.' Shades and shadows live there now.

Next: 'The Finder'