Hoard

Finds tray – Harold II

Coins of Harold II Godwinson (r. 1066), killed at the Battle of Hastings, are not common – the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme has recorded only 28 such single finds in 24 years. Even rarer are those minted in Harold’s…

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Secrets of the Galloway Hoard

With a large amount of gold and Anglo-Saxon objects otherwise unseen in Scotland, the Viking Age hoard discovered in Galloway in 2014 is unusual in a number of ways. What do we know so far about this complex hoard? And what more might its contents tell us? As the Galloway Hoard goes on display in a new exhibition and research continues, Martin Goldberg explores the answers, and the new questions, the enigmatic assemblage offers up.

A wealth of Viking finds

Dated to c.AD 950 on stylistic grounds, the hoard contains three significant pieces of jewellery deposited in a single event, possibly by a wealthy individual.

Below Containing at least 453 bronze and copper objects and fragments, the Havering hoard is the largest Bronze Age hoard to be found in London, and the third largest known in the whole United Kingdom. This is only a selection of its contents and its story is now being told at the Museum of London Docklands.

The Havering hoard

Two years ago, London’s largest Bronze Age hoard was discovered on the eastern fringe of the city. It is now on display at the Museum of London Docklands. What do its contents tell us about life in the Thames river valley 3,000 years ago? Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts visited the exhibition to find out.

The Herefordshire Viking Hoard: unpicking the story of a stolen treasure

Last year, four men were jailed for stealing and selling one of the most significant Viking hoards ever found in western Britain. To date, only a few of its contents have been recovered. What can these objects, and the landscape in which they were buried, tell us about the area’s early medieval history? Tim Hoverd, Peter Reavill, Judy Stevenson, and Gareth Williams report.

OPPOSITE Sark’s connectivity is summed up in this image of a figure standing at the southern end of the island looking north west to Guernsey on the horizon. Barry Cunliffe believes that Sark might have been one of the many sacred islands along the Atlantic interface that Strabo wrote about at the end of the 1st century BC. BELOW Sheer cliffs rise steeply on every side, home to many seabirds. The gently undulating plain is fertile, well watered and extensively cultivated. Between the cliffs and the fields, the ‘skirt’ lands were traditionally used for sheep grazing.

Sark: the unexplored isle – investigating millennia of isolation and connectivity

Even today, getting to the Channel Island of Sark is an adventure, involving a 55-minute journey by sea from Guernsey, and then a climb from the quay through a tunnel in the rock to reach the top of the sheer cliffs that surround the island on all sides. Given the challenges of getting to Sark, the island provides the perfect opportunity to study connectivity and isolation down the ages – one of Sir Barry Cunliffe’s perennial preoccupations, sparking his excavations there. Who came here, when, and why? And what does it tell us about the mobility of past visitors? Chris Catling reports.

Above Adam Wightman, pictured excavating the Fenwick Treasure.

The Fenwick Treasure: Colchester during the Boudiccan War of Independence

Excavations in Colchester have revealed where a couple stashed their valuables before Boudicca sacked the city. These artefacts, and the charred debris found strewn above them, provide a poignant insight into those on the receiving end of the Iceni’s wrath. First, Philip Crummy and Adam Wightman shed light on a dark day in Colchester’s past, and then Nina Crummy guides us through the treasure itself.