27 Sep 2007 He dug bronze tools out of the ground

Three thousand years old tools were discovered in Děčín by the searcher Jiří Bulušek, who was one of the pioneers of detectorism in the Czech Republic. The depot included a knife, an axe with lobes, a bronze casting mould for an axe and a hammer. He received a reward of sixteen and a half thousand crowns from the Ústí Region.

In the middle of the forest above the town, Bulushka's detector detected an unusual metal. The prospector didn't hesitate and started digging. He found a cavity in the ground and inside an axe, a casting mould, a hammer and a knife. All three thousand years old.

"I was blown away, as we prospectors say. When I dug it up, I put nitro under my tongue so I wouldn't collapse," Bulušek told Czech Television at the time.

The find was examined by archaeologists and subsequently acquired by the museum. "After a long time, this is simply a completely unique and extraordinary find," archaeologist Petr Lissek said.

The treasure was discovered by Bulušek on Stolová hora near Děčín. He received a reward of sixteen and a half thousand crowns from the Ústí nad Labem Region. "This is the first time in the history of the Ústí Region, i.e. since 2000, that we have rewarded such a finder. An honest person simply deserves the reward, others are either not, do not know their duties or do not know about their rights to the finder's fee," said the governor Jiří Šulc at the time.

The searcher immediately called the experts from the city of Decin to the object located thirty centimetres below the surface, whosecured the site, retrieved the find and handed it over to the Institute of Archaeological Heritage Care of Northwest Bohemia in Most.

The Department of Culture and Heritage Protection of the Regional Authority then requested an expert opinion from the Archaeological Institute of the Academy of Sciences. They estimated the cultural and historical value of the find at CZK 165,000.

The county subsequently acted in accordance with the law. This means that one tenth of the value of the find belongs to the finder. Bulušek had been searching with a metal detector for a long time and already had a rich collection of finds. He found a number of "treasures", mostly in the Děčín region. These included badges, metal parts of German soldiers' equipment from the end of World War II, porcelain and so on.

He planned to invest the reward in buying a new coil for his detector and a digital camera.

Sources: www.ct24.cz, www.e-region.cz