The largest Viking hoard ever found outside Russia, was discovered in 1840 by workmen repairing the embankment along the River Ribble at Cuerdale near Preston in Lancashire. Around 8,600 objects were buried in the lead-lined chest, made up mainly of coins but also including ingots, amulets, chains, rings, as well as broken-up brooches and armlets. […]

Discovered by a metal detectorist in November 2004, the Huxley Hoard is made up of 21 flattened, decorated silver arm-rings and a small cast ingot. Clearly Viking, the hoard has been dated to the first decade of the 9th century AD. Steve Reynoldson was taking part in a metal detector rally, organised by the Lune […]

The Hoxne Hoard, found in November 1992, is a spectacular collection of gold and silver artefacts buried about AD 410 – just as Roman Britain came to an end.

Discovered by workmen digging drains in 1859, the hoard of Viking silver contains 39 coins and hacksilver made from fragments of brooches and arm-rings. Among the coins were three of Anglo-Saxon origin — one of which was a rare example of coin of Alfred the Great, and two were pennies from the reign of his […]

Stunning new discoveries in Orkney It is an artificial mound the size of five football pitches, formed of monumental stone structures and massive dumps of waste. And it is up to 5,000 years old.  Nick Card of the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology describes why we may be on the brink of a radical rethink […]

How the Roman emperors quarried their marble. High in the mountains of Egypt’s eastern desert, one of the world’s most magical marbles is to be found: porphyry. Porphyry is a red marble which the Roman Emperors   thought was extremely beautiful and they reserved it for their palaces. Porphyry is only found in the eastern […]