April 10, 2014 Goldfish from the 7th century
Categories: Calendar , Nálezy nejenom s detektorem ve Velké Británii a Irsku
Barry Shannon is a passionate fisherman. However, he did not fish out his most valuable discovery from the pond, he found it in a field with a metal detector. It was a gold object from the seventh century, which resembles a fish.
At the time, a 22-year-old finder found a fish near the town of Downpatrick, in the east of Northern Ireland. The coroner from Belfast declared the find treasure. According to him, the fish is of Anglo-Saxon origin and could have been part of a larger object such as a buckle or belt.
Shannon had only been searching with a metal detector for a few weeks. He found the fish on his fourth search walk. At first, he had no idea what he had discovered. "I'm a fisherman and the object I found reminded me of a spinning wheel I put on the end of the line," the lucky finder admitted.
He then went for a search walk with his cousin. "Actually, I told him if he didn't want to keep the thing because he'd been out with me all day. He told me to keep it, "Shannon recalled.
He showed the fish to his aunt Jen McKee, on whose property he found the object. She took him to the local museum for further investigation. They say they haven't seen anything like it in other museums yet. They solved the mystery by contacting an expert from the University of Cambridge.
The fish is almost identical to the one previously found on an ornate Anglo-Saxon buckle with a gold and silver belt in Crundale, Kent. It is now housed in the British Museum. How a similar object got on the finder's aunt's land, but remains a mystery to this day.
According to the curator of the National Museum in Northern Ireland, Greer Ramsey, this is a really unusual find, because there was no Anglo-Saxon settlement in Ireland. "We really don't know or have any idea how the goldfish got on the land. The explanation may be that it was traded by a merchant who traveled across the sea. Or it is possible that the fish simply comes from Downpatrick, which was a Christian place, "said Ramsey.
The fish is six centimeters long and contains 85 percent gold, inside it is a copper alloy. First, it was handed over to experts from the British Museum to appreciate the find. She ended up in a museum in Ulster.
Resources:
www.bbc.com
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