“I thought it was just an old tin can.”
An amateur treasure hunter has discovered a Bronze Age treasure after getting lost while searching for the treasure. Sixty-year-old John Belgrave discovered a rare sword, hatchet and bracelet in Dorset after he became separated from a group of colleagues.
One amateur treasure hunter has told how he discovered Bronze Age treasure, including a rare sword, after getting lost during a treasure-hunting rally.
The Guardian reports that 60-year-old John Belgrave has separated from the main search party and headed to higher ground to try to locate them when he made what he called “the find of a lifetime”.
His detector went off as he walked and began digging, revealing a rapier sword dating back to the Middle Bronze Age. As The Guardian notes, the 61cm blade had been deliberately broken into three pieces and buried near the remains of a wealthy landowner.
Unusually, the hilt, although cast in bronze, was shaped to imitate a wooden handle. Only two similar blades had previously been found in Britain, and they were incomplete.
As well as the weapon, a palm-frond axe head and an ornamental armband were also found, believed to have been buried as offerings.
Dorset Museum and Art Gallery raised £17,000 to buy the items, with the proceeds split between Belgrave and the landowner.
Belgrave, a retired pensions adviser from Purley, Surrey, made his find in the village of Stalbridge, near Sherborne, Dorset, in 2020.
He paid £20 to take part in the event on a private farm but became separated from the group.
Belgrave said: “There was a group of 40 to 50 treasure hunters there and they had searched the area before but were excited because new ground had opened up for the rally. I followed, but didn’t know anyone there. Somehow I got behind and got lost, and then I got to a high spot in the field, and that's when I got the powerful signal that this was the find of my life.
It was clear there was metal there, but I thought it was just an old tin can or something. I went about eight inches deeper and discovered an oddly shaped object that was covered with clay. At the time, I didn’t know what it was, but it turned out to be a solid sword handle, an exceptional thing.”
The man then found two broken pieces of the blade, along with an ax head and a bracelet.
< p>Belgrave said: “When I saw the ax head, I realized that this was Bronze Age treasure. I felt dizzy. The blade of the sword was still sharp. According to the British Museum, it was deliberately broken and buried in the ground as part of a ritual burial and offering.
Elizabeth Selby, director of collections at Dorset Museum, said: “This treasure is incredibly special. The rapier blade is truly unusual due to its cast bronze hilt. The bracelet's decoration was also quite unusual.
Finds like these tell us how people traveled, met and exchanged ideas with others on the continent in the centuries before the Roman invasion. There was a farming community there, and these people made enough money to be able to trade items made by other people.
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