THE SEDGEFORD HOARD
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The SEDGEFORD HOARD book |
THE SEDGEFORD HOARD
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The SEDGEFORD HOARD book |
A
hoard of gold staters inside a cow’s leg bone has been found in
the last week of SHARP’s 2003 summer season. The discovery was
made by Kevin Woodward, an RAF technician and regular SHARP
volunteer, who was metal-detecting in the waterlogged area of the
Boneyard-Reeddam excavation prior to shutting down the site. As well
as the cow bone, eleven other dispersed staters were found nearby to
add to the eight recovered since 1996. The cow bone itself was
X-rayed and found to contain 20 more staters. Presumably all 39 coins
had originally been hidden in the shaft of the bone, but later
ditches and grave-cuts had smashed the bone and dispersed part of the
hoard.
While Gareth Davies and his diggers continued with hurried excavations at the find-spot, Kevin, supported by a team of specialists and photographers, excavated the bone in the Old Village Hall – an operation which took all day.
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Photograph by M. Fashing |
Megan Dennis is now leading the research team investigating the hoard, and the plan is to produce a full publication within a year. It will be copiously illustrated with drawings and top-class, close-up colour images of the coins and the excavation of the bone.
The fate of the treasure itself remains uncertain. It will now enter
the treasure trove system, and the landowner will have to decide
whether he wishes to seek the market value of the hoard (thus
activating an inquest and valuation procedure), or to donate it to
the Norfolk Museums Service (the intended curators of the SHARP
archive in the long term).
Meantime, SHARP is fast developing a new Iron Age dimension to its work. Was the hoard buried for security in a time of turmoil? Or is it a ritual deposit in a sacred landscape – as the finding of a horse-burial on the site on the same day as the discovery of the hoard may suggest? The answers may lie in the great expanse of wetland we know today as ‘Reeddam’. SHARP’s future may have to include a major – and logistically complex – waterlogged excavation.
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Photographs by H. Snelling unless otherwise stated. © SHARP. Please email for permission to use photographs and include full acknowledgement where appropriate.
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