Lost Gold of the Dark Ages on NatGeoTV
I finally got around to watching Lost Gold of the Dark Ages on the National Geographic Channel. I’ve had it recorded for a couple of weeks now. The program discusses the recent Anglo-Saxon gold treasure discovered in Staffordshire, England, last year. The treasure hoard is larger than the Sutton Hoo burial and comparable to finding King Tut’s treasure.
Lost Gold of the Dark Ages begins with the gold’s discovery by an amateur metal-detecting enthusiast, Terry Herbert, on a farm owned by Fred Johnson. Other metal detectorists had investigated the field previously, but Terry asked Fred’s permission to search it again, and what he found became the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever uncovered. The treasure consists of more than 1,500 items, which includes mostly military items such as sword pommels, sword hilts, and items that once decorated the weapons. A few gold crosses were also among the discovered items.
With interviews from leading experts, the show speculates on where the treasure came from, who owned it, and why it was buried. Given the martial nature of the find, some believe it to be a trophy hoard of items captured during battle.
An entry on Wikipedia already exists for the Staffordshire Hoard, and it provides good information about the discovery.
*image retrieved from the Staffordshire Hoard Flickr page, attribution below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/finds/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Filed under: Archaeology, Middle Ages History, Medieval History on May 3rd, 2010
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