Mildenhall Treasure
Encyclopedia
The West Row Treasure is a major hoard
of highly decorated Roman
silver
tableware from the fourth-century AD, found at West Row, near Mildenhall
in the English
county of Suffolk
. It consists of two large serving platters, two small decorated serving plates, a deep fluted bowl, a set of four large decorated bowls, two small decorated bowls, two small pedestalled dishes, a deep flanged bowl with a deep, domed cover, five small round ladles with dolphin-shaped handles, and eight long-handled spoons (cochlear
ia). The hoard was discovered while ploughing in January 1942
by Gordon Butcher, who removed it from the ground with help from Sydney Ford, for whom he was working at the time. They did not recognise the objects for what they were, and the hoard did not come to the attention of the authorities until 1946. An inquest was held in the summer of that year, when the find was declared Treasure Trove
and acquired by the British Museum
in London. Many details of the discovery remained uncertain, not least because it took place in wartime. Academic opinion in the mid-20th century was generally reluctant to believe that such fine-quality Roman silver could possibly have been used in Roman Britain, and so there were many imaginative rumours and even doubts that this was a genuine British find at all. The numerous well documented discoveries of high-quality Roman material in recent decades, including the Hoxne Hoard
, have set all such doubts to rest.
John W. Brailsford promptly published the first brief, summary catalogue of the find, and successive revised editions of this booklet were published in 1955 and 1964. A somewhat fuller, though still brief, study by Kenneth.S. Painter came out in 1977. (Note that the catalogue numbers in Painter 1977, cited in the descriptions below, correspond with the sequence of Museum registration numbers, 1946.10-1.1–34, established in the original curatorial listing of the objects). The most striking object in the treasure, the Great Dish (see below) has been illustrated and mentioned in countless publications, including a major paper on late Roman "picture plates". More recently, Richard Hobbs drew the attention of the academic world to the importance of the fictionalised account by Roald Dahl, and has since addressed the difficult issues surrounding the actual finding. However, the treasure still awaits full and detailed scholarly publication.
Roald Dahl's story was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post, and later as "The Mildenhall Treasure" in his short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
. In Dahl's version of events, Ford was fully aware of the significance of the find, but could not bear to part with the treasure. He kept it and restored it in secret, but a piece left out was seen by an unexpected visitor. As a result, Butcher was deprived of the full ex gratia reward made to finders of buried gold or silver, since the find had not been correctly reported to the authorities.
Dish or as the Neptune Dish, from the face of a sea-god at its centre), which measures 605 mm in diameter and weighs 8256 g, is the outstanding piece. The decoration, which was worked by chasing
from the front, is in three concentric zones. In the centre, the head of a marine deity, probably Oceanus, the personification of the ocean, is shown full-face, with seaweed in his hair and dolphins emerging from his beard. This portrait is surrounded by a narrow inner frieze of decoration populated by nereids (sea-nymphs), triton
s and other mythical and natural sea-creatures, while the deep outermost zone carries imagery of the Bacchic thiasos, the dancing, music-making and drinking revels of the god Bacchus
. More specifically, the triumph of Bacchus over Hercules
is depicted. Hercules is shown staggering drunkenly and supported by two helpful satyr
s. Bacchus himself appears with his panther and Silenus
at the '12 o'clock' position on the circle in relation to the orientation of the Oceanus head, so that in most illustrations of the dish, he is seen upside-down at the top of the picture. The god Pan also appears in the composition, dancing and brandishing his pan-pipes, as do several dancing Maenad
s, the female devotees of Bacchus, and satyrs. The entire design is traditionally pagan, and is superbly executed.
Two small plates (respectively 188 and 185 mm in diameter; weights 539 and 613 g.) are decorated in precisely the same style as the Great Dish: one shows the god Pan, playing his pipes, and a maenad playing the double flute, and the other shows a dancing satyr with a dancing maenad. Both of these small dishes have scratched graffiti in Greek on their undersides: eutheriou, meaning '(property) of Eutherios'. Both also have a bold beaded edging, as does the Great Dish itself and several other items in the assemblage.
Another large, flat serving platter is almost as big as the Great Dish, with a diameter of 556 mm, but is decorated in a very different and more restrained style, consisting of linear geometric decoration inlaid with contrasting black niello
(silver sulphide) to form a wide rim border and a circular central panel.
tends to loosen during burial) is of a type found in several late-Roman silver hoards, such as those in the Esquiline Treasure from Rome, and from Traprain Law
in Scotland. The type is thought to have developed from earlier shell-shaped bowls, and to have been used to contain water at the dining table, intended for rinsing the hands of the diners. The chased geometric design in the centre of the Mildenhall fluted bowl depicts a six-pointed star, a device that had no specific symbolic meaning in the Roman period, but was simply one of many popular geometric figures.
The covered bowl is a vessel of particular interest. The bowl itself is the earliest object in the hoard, and the only one whose general area of manufacture within the Roman Empire is known for certain. It belongs to a type that is known to have been manufactured in Gaul in the 3rd century AD. It has a narrow horizontal flange set below the upright rim and decorated with scroll patterns inlaid in niello, and a small nielloed rosette within the centre base. It has been provided with a high, domed lid that fits neatly over the vertical rim and has been decorated in a very different style, with two friezes of low-relief decoration. The upper zone consists of conventional foliate ornament, while the lower is a scene of centaur
s attacking various wild animals, separated by Bacchic masks. The small raised rim at the top of the lid would have sufficed for handling it, but set within it is a 'knob' in the form of a silver-gilt statuette of a young, seated triton blowing a conch shell. This figure may well be a secondary addition to the lid, and the lid, in 4th-century style, is certainly a secondary addition to the bowl.
A set of four bowls with wide, horizontal rims represent a later development of the flange
d bowl form. The rims, or flanges, are edged with large beads, and have low-relief decoration that once more follows the traditional pagan, Bacchic theme, with pastoral scenes, numerous animals, natural and mythical, and Bacchic masks. They also have circular medallions of figural decoration within the bowl. One (no.5) has a scene showing a hunter attacking a bear. This bowl, with a diameter of 300 mm, is a little larger than the other three, which all have a diameter of 268 mm and central medallions depicting single heads in profile; a young woman, a veiled matron, and a helmeted head. The identification of these remains uncertain.
There is a matching pair of smaller flanged bowls, (diameter 168 mm): they are intricately decorated with beading, foliate scrolls and small birds and hares on the rims, and have rosettes in relief in the centre base. The main bodies of these little bowls has a delicate fluted pattern internally.
treasure, found in 1919.
type. The round 'ladles' have zoomorphic handles cast in the form of dolphins. There is a comparable piece in the Traprain treasure, and there are two sets each of ten ladles of this type, though not with zoomorphic handles, in the Hoxne hoard. Only four handles survive from the Mildenhall ladles, and one of those is broken and incomplete. Because handles and bowls were soldered together in antiquity and had separated during burial, it is not certain which handle belongs to which bowl. In theory, if each component bowl and each handle were from a different utensil, there could have been as many as 9 ladles originally. In practice, it seems more likely that the handles and bowls present all belong together, and the group has therefore been reconstructed as five ladles, combining the existing handles and bowls.
The 8 cochlearia belong to three groups or sets. Three have pear-shaped bowls with foliate decoration within. Nos. 29-31 are all inscribed within the bowls with the only explicitly Christian references in the group, namely the standard Christian Chi-rho monogram, flanked by the latters alpha and omega. The other two spoons, nos. 27 and 28, have bowl inscriptions with personal names: PASCENTIAVIVAS and PAPITTEDOVIVAS. Though vivas (may you live!) inscriptions are not overtly or exclusively Christian, they are quite commonly seen in Christian contexts, so these spoons may also allude to Christian belief.
The rate of discovery of metal hoards of all periods has accelerated in Britain since the middle of the 20th century, due to a combination of circumstances that include changing agricultural practices, the rise of metal-detecting as a hobby, and better public understanding of archaeology. The Mildenhall group is exceptional by any standards, but in 1946, it still seemed 'far too good' to be a British find.
Older finds, such as the treasures from Traprain Law
and the Esquiline Hill in Rome, and more recent ones, such as the great Kaiseraugst treasure from Switzerland and the Hoxne hoard
, can now been seen in both international and Romano-British contexts that make it clear that personal possessions of very high quality were indeed in use in the frontier province of Britain in the 4th century AD, and that the Mildenhall material remains pre-eminent as a partial set of silver tableware of that period.
The hoard was number 7 in the list of British archaeological finds selected by experts at the British Museum
for the 2003
BBC Television
documentary Our Top Ten Treasures
presented by Adam Hart-Davis
.
Hoard
In archaeology, a hoard is a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground. This would usually be with the intention of later recovery by the hoarder; hoarders sometimes died before retrieving the hoard, and these surviving hoards may be uncovered by...
of highly decorated Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
tableware from the fourth-century AD, found at West Row, near Mildenhall
Mildenhall, Suffolk
Mildenhall is a small market town and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is run by Forest Heath District Council and has a population of 9,906 people. The town is near the A11 and is located north-west of county town, Ipswich. The large Royal Air Force base, RAF Mildenhall as well as RAF...
in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
. It consists of two large serving platters, two small decorated serving plates, a deep fluted bowl, a set of four large decorated bowls, two small decorated bowls, two small pedestalled dishes, a deep flanged bowl with a deep, domed cover, five small round ladles with dolphin-shaped handles, and eight long-handled spoons (cochlear
Cochlear
Cochlear, the adjective form of cochlea, may refer to:* Cochlear implant, a sensory aid for the deaf* Cochlear nuclei, the ventral cochlear nucleus and the dorsal cochlear nucleus...
ia). The hoard was discovered while ploughing in January 1942
1942 in archaeology
The year 1942 in archaeology involved some significant events.-Finds:*January: Mildenhall Treasure discovered by ploughman Gordon Butcher in Suffolk, England....
by Gordon Butcher, who removed it from the ground with help from Sydney Ford, for whom he was working at the time. They did not recognise the objects for what they were, and the hoard did not come to the attention of the authorities until 1946. An inquest was held in the summer of that year, when the find was declared Treasure Trove
Treasure trove
A treasure trove may broadly be defined as an amount of money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion found hidden underground or in places such as cellars or attics, where the treasure seems old enough for it to be presumed that the true owner is dead and the heirs undiscoverable...
and acquired by the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
in London. Many details of the discovery remained uncertain, not least because it took place in wartime. Academic opinion in the mid-20th century was generally reluctant to believe that such fine-quality Roman silver could possibly have been used in Roman Britain, and so there were many imaginative rumours and even doubts that this was a genuine British find at all. The numerous well documented discoveries of high-quality Roman material in recent decades, including the Hoxne Hoard
Hoxne Hoard
The Hoxne Hoard is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth century found anywhere within the Roman Empire...
, have set all such doubts to rest.
History of display and publication
The Mildenhall find was placed on show in its entirety in the British Museum as soon as the necessary registration and conservation work had been completed following its acquisition in 1946, and it has remained a permanent feature of the museum's Romano-British gallery ever since, with occasional loans of some pieces to special exhibitions both within the museum and elsewhere.John W. Brailsford promptly published the first brief, summary catalogue of the find, and successive revised editions of this booklet were published in 1955 and 1964. A somewhat fuller, though still brief, study by Kenneth.S. Painter came out in 1977. (Note that the catalogue numbers in Painter 1977, cited in the descriptions below, correspond with the sequence of Museum registration numbers, 1946.10-1.1–34, established in the original curatorial listing of the objects). The most striking object in the treasure, the Great Dish (see below) has been illustrated and mentioned in countless publications, including a major paper on late Roman "picture plates". More recently, Richard Hobbs drew the attention of the academic world to the importance of the fictionalised account by Roald Dahl, and has since addressed the difficult issues surrounding the actual finding. However, the treasure still awaits full and detailed scholarly publication.
Roald Dahl's story was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post, and later as "The Mildenhall Treasure" in his short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More is a collection of seven short stories written by Roald Dahl. They are generally regarded as being aimed for a slightly older audience than many of his other children's books....
. In Dahl's version of events, Ford was fully aware of the significance of the find, but could not bear to part with the treasure. He kept it and restored it in secret, but a piece left out was seen by an unexpected visitor. As a result, Butcher was deprived of the full ex gratia reward made to finders of buried gold or silver, since the find had not been correctly reported to the authorities.
The contents of the hoard
The treasure consists of silver tableware of types current in the 4th century, and was probably concealed at some time in that century. Most of the objects are comparatively large, and all are of very high-quality workmanship.Platters and dishes
The Great Dish (also known as the OceanusOceanus
Oceanus ; , Ōkeanós) was a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the world-ocean, an enormous river encircling the world....
Dish or as the Neptune Dish, from the face of a sea-god at its centre), which measures 605 mm in diameter and weighs 8256 g, is the outstanding piece. The decoration, which was worked by chasing
Repoussé and chasing
Repoussé or repoussage is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is ornamented or shaped by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in low relief. There are few techniques that offer such diversity of expression while still being relatively economical...
from the front, is in three concentric zones. In the centre, the head of a marine deity, probably Oceanus, the personification of the ocean, is shown full-face, with seaweed in his hair and dolphins emerging from his beard. This portrait is surrounded by a narrow inner frieze of decoration populated by nereids (sea-nymphs), triton
Triton (mythology)
Triton is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the big sea. He is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Amphitrite, goddess of the sea, whose herald he is...
s and other mythical and natural sea-creatures, while the deep outermost zone carries imagery of the Bacchic thiasos, the dancing, music-making and drinking revels of the god Bacchus
Bacchus
Bacchus is the Roman name for Dionysus, the god of wine and intoxication.Bacchus can also refer to:* Temple of Bacchus, a Roman temple at a large classical antiquity complex in Baalbek, Lebanon...
. More specifically, the triumph of Bacchus over Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
is depicted. Hercules is shown staggering drunkenly and supported by two helpful satyr
Satyr
In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....
s. Bacchus himself appears with his panther and Silenus
Silenus
In Greek mythology, Silenus was a companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus.-Evolution of the character:The original Silenus resembled a folklore man of the forest with the ears of a horse and sometimes also the tail and legs of a horse...
at the '12 o'clock' position on the circle in relation to the orientation of the Oceanus head, so that in most illustrations of the dish, he is seen upside-down at the top of the picture. The god Pan also appears in the composition, dancing and brandishing his pan-pipes, as do several dancing Maenad
Maenad
In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus , the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones"...
s, the female devotees of Bacchus, and satyrs. The entire design is traditionally pagan, and is superbly executed.
Two small plates (respectively 188 and 185 mm in diameter; weights 539 and 613 g.) are decorated in precisely the same style as the Great Dish: one shows the god Pan, playing his pipes, and a maenad playing the double flute, and the other shows a dancing satyr with a dancing maenad. Both of these small dishes have scratched graffiti in Greek on their undersides: eutheriou, meaning '(property) of Eutherios'. Both also have a bold beaded edging, as does the Great Dish itself and several other items in the assemblage.
Another large, flat serving platter is almost as big as the Great Dish, with a diameter of 556 mm, but is decorated in a very different and more restrained style, consisting of linear geometric decoration inlaid with contrasting black niello
Niello
Niello is a black mixture of copper, silver, and lead sulphides, used as an inlay on engraved or etched metal. It can be used for filling in designs cut from metal...
(silver sulphide) to form a wide rim border and a circular central panel.
Bowls
A deep fluted bowl with two small swing handles (which were detached at the time of discovery, because solderSolder
Solder is a fusible metal alloy used to join together metal workpieces and having a melting point below that of the workpiece.Soft solder is what is most often thought of when solder or soldering are mentioned and it typically has a melting range of . It is commonly used in electronics and...
tends to loosen during burial) is of a type found in several late-Roman silver hoards, such as those in the Esquiline Treasure from Rome, and from Traprain Law
Traprain Law
Traprain Law is a hill about 221m in elevation, located east of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. It is the site of an oppidum or hill fort, which covered at its maximum extent about 16 ha and must have been a veritable town...
in Scotland. The type is thought to have developed from earlier shell-shaped bowls, and to have been used to contain water at the dining table, intended for rinsing the hands of the diners. The chased geometric design in the centre of the Mildenhall fluted bowl depicts a six-pointed star, a device that had no specific symbolic meaning in the Roman period, but was simply one of many popular geometric figures.
The covered bowl is a vessel of particular interest. The bowl itself is the earliest object in the hoard, and the only one whose general area of manufacture within the Roman Empire is known for certain. It belongs to a type that is known to have been manufactured in Gaul in the 3rd century AD. It has a narrow horizontal flange set below the upright rim and decorated with scroll patterns inlaid in niello, and a small nielloed rosette within the centre base. It has been provided with a high, domed lid that fits neatly over the vertical rim and has been decorated in a very different style, with two friezes of low-relief decoration. The upper zone consists of conventional foliate ornament, while the lower is a scene of centaur
Centaur
In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...
s attacking various wild animals, separated by Bacchic masks. The small raised rim at the top of the lid would have sufficed for handling it, but set within it is a 'knob' in the form of a silver-gilt statuette of a young, seated triton blowing a conch shell. This figure may well be a secondary addition to the lid, and the lid, in 4th-century style, is certainly a secondary addition to the bowl.
A set of four bowls with wide, horizontal rims represent a later development of the flange
Flange
A flange is an external or internal ridge, or rim , for strength, as the flange of an iron beam such as an I-beam or a T-beam; or for attachment to another object, as the flange on the end of a pipe, steam cylinder, etc., or on the lens mount of a camera; or for a flange of a rail car or tram wheel...
d bowl form. The rims, or flanges, are edged with large beads, and have low-relief decoration that once more follows the traditional pagan, Bacchic theme, with pastoral scenes, numerous animals, natural and mythical, and Bacchic masks. They also have circular medallions of figural decoration within the bowl. One (no.5) has a scene showing a hunter attacking a bear. This bowl, with a diameter of 300 mm, is a little larger than the other three, which all have a diameter of 268 mm and central medallions depicting single heads in profile; a young woman, a veiled matron, and a helmeted head. The identification of these remains uncertain.
There is a matching pair of smaller flanged bowls, (diameter 168 mm): they are intricately decorated with beading, foliate scrolls and small birds and hares on the rims, and have rosettes in relief in the centre base. The main bodies of these little bowls has a delicate fluted pattern internally.
Pedestalled dishes
Two pedestalled dishes also form a pair. They were originally thought to be stemmed cups with wide, flat bases, somewhat like a modern wineglass in shape, but the foliate pattern on the 'bases' and the relatively unfinished interiors of the 'cups' show that they were used the other way up, as small (115mm diameter) flat dishes on a stem with a bowl-shaped base. Vessels of the same shape occur in the Traprain LawTraprain Law
Traprain Law is a hill about 221m in elevation, located east of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. It is the site of an oppidum or hill fort, which covered at its maximum extent about 16 ha and must have been a veritable town...
treasure, found in 1919.
Spoons
The remaining objects in the Mildenhall assemblage are all small eating utensils; five round-bowled ladles or spoons, and eight long-handled spoons of the common late-Roman cochlearCochlear
Cochlear, the adjective form of cochlea, may refer to:* Cochlear implant, a sensory aid for the deaf* Cochlear nuclei, the ventral cochlear nucleus and the dorsal cochlear nucleus...
type. The round 'ladles' have zoomorphic handles cast in the form of dolphins. There is a comparable piece in the Traprain treasure, and there are two sets each of ten ladles of this type, though not with zoomorphic handles, in the Hoxne hoard. Only four handles survive from the Mildenhall ladles, and one of those is broken and incomplete. Because handles and bowls were soldered together in antiquity and had separated during burial, it is not certain which handle belongs to which bowl. In theory, if each component bowl and each handle were from a different utensil, there could have been as many as 9 ladles originally. In practice, it seems more likely that the handles and bowls present all belong together, and the group has therefore been reconstructed as five ladles, combining the existing handles and bowls.
The 8 cochlearia belong to three groups or sets. Three have pear-shaped bowls with foliate decoration within. Nos. 29-31 are all inscribed within the bowls with the only explicitly Christian references in the group, namely the standard Christian Chi-rho monogram, flanked by the latters alpha and omega. The other two spoons, nos. 27 and 28, have bowl inscriptions with personal names: PASCENTIAVIVAS and PAPITTEDOVIVAS. Though vivas (may you live!) inscriptions are not overtly or exclusively Christian, they are quite commonly seen in Christian contexts, so these spoons may also allude to Christian belief.
Inscriptions
In addition to the three definite Christian symbols and two possibly Christian inscriptions on the spoons, and the ownership graffiti of Eutherios on the two small Bacchic platters, several of the Mildenhall pieces, in common with many large items of Roman silver tableware from other finds, bear weight-inscriptions. These are scratched in inconspicuous places, such as bases, and can be very difficult to read and interpret, since they do not necessarily record the weight of the object itself, but sometimes of a set of which that object forms part. Although domestic silver was used for social display, so that its artistic quality was important to the owner, the actual bullion value of precious metal was part of his wealth, and needed to be noted and recorded.Importance
The Mildenhall treasure contains pieces that undoubtedly belong to the first rank of Roman art and craftsmanship on an international scale of excellence. Although it was found at a time, and in a manner, that leave many unanswered questions about the reasons for and date of its concealment, the overall 4th-century dating is certain, and the decoration, with its traditional pagan themes just touched with the influence of the new faith, Christianity, in some of the minor pieces, is characteristic of that period of change in the Roman Empire. We cannot yet say where objects such as the Great Dish were manufactured, but it seems safe to surmise that it would have been somewhere in the general Mediterranean region.The rate of discovery of metal hoards of all periods has accelerated in Britain since the middle of the 20th century, due to a combination of circumstances that include changing agricultural practices, the rise of metal-detecting as a hobby, and better public understanding of archaeology. The Mildenhall group is exceptional by any standards, but in 1946, it still seemed 'far too good' to be a British find.
Older finds, such as the treasures from Traprain Law
Traprain Law
Traprain Law is a hill about 221m in elevation, located east of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. It is the site of an oppidum or hill fort, which covered at its maximum extent about 16 ha and must have been a veritable town...
and the Esquiline Hill in Rome, and more recent ones, such as the great Kaiseraugst treasure from Switzerland and the Hoxne hoard
Hoxne Hoard
The Hoxne Hoard is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth century found anywhere within the Roman Empire...
, can now been seen in both international and Romano-British contexts that make it clear that personal possessions of very high quality were indeed in use in the frontier province of Britain in the 4th century AD, and that the Mildenhall material remains pre-eminent as a partial set of silver tableware of that period.
The hoard was number 7 in the list of British archaeological finds selected by experts at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
for the 2003
2003 in television
The year 2003 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 2003.For the American TV schedule, see: 2003-04 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1940s:...
BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
documentary Our Top Ten Treasures
Our Top Ten Treasures
Our Top Ten Treasures was a 2003 special episode of the BBC Television series Meet the Ancestors which profiled the ten most important treasures unearthed in Britain, as voted for by a panel of experts from the British Museum.-Production:...
presented by Adam Hart-Davis
Adam Hart-Davis
Adam John Hart-Davis is an English scientist, author, photographer, historian and broadcaster, well-known in the UK for presenting the BBC television series Local Heroes and What the Romans Did for Us, the latter spawning several spin-off series involving the Victorians, the Tudors, the Stuarts,...
.