12/22/20 Report - Seagrape Trail Access Being Rebuilt. 1000-Year-Old Cross Cleaned. Shipwreck With Elephant Tusk Cargo.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

1000-Year-Old Cross Before and After Cleaning.
Source: See link below.

In 2014, amateur treasure hunter Derek McLennan was scouring a field in southwestern Scotland when he unearthed what appeared to be a bit of silver decorated with an Anglo-Saxon design.

“I went into shock, endorphins flooded my system and away I went stumbling towards my colleagues waving it in the air,” the retired businessman told BBC News at the time.

As it turns out, the rare artifact that caught McLennan’s eye was just the tip of an archaeological iceberg: He and two friends had stumbled onto a hoard of more than 100 gold and silver objects—one of the biggest troves of Viking-era artifacts ever found in the United Kingdom.

National Museums Scotland acquired the Galloway Hoard, as it came to be known, in 2017. Since then, conservators have been working to clean and restore the items, all of which spent more than 1,000 years buried in the Scottish field. This week, the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) released new images of the latest object to undergo conservation: an intricately decorated Anglo-Saxon cross...

Here is the link for more about that.

Freed of 1,000 Years of Grime, Anglo-Saxon Cross Emerges in Stunning Detail | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine

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As you probably know, the Seagrape Trail beach access has been closed for months.  It is being rebuilt though (See below.).

Construction At Seagrape Trail Beach Access.
Photo by DJ.

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Yesterday I mentioned finds sometimes being made many years after they were lost.  That reminded William P. of one find he made.  Here is how he told it.

Your post today reminded me of 2 events years apart involving an awesome chain and pendant. I would say probably 25 years ago I was a newbie to detecting, I was on a beach detecting a the dry sand. The machine was a Compass land machine. After a couple hours a young came running up to me asking to find his 30" long 18K chain with a large marlin pendant attached. The marlin had ruby eyes. He described it very well. He was very disappointed when I told him my detector was not a water machine.

The spot was in very close proximity to a fishing pier so I knew pretty much the area it was in. It wasn't till years later I started water hunting but never thought about that chain again.

One day probably 10 or 12 years later, I was in the same area with a hunting buddy and low and behold he pulls up the same chain and pendant. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I related the story and that was the end of that. The current was really running that day and a ton of sand was moving... large shells and rocks were exposed. We found several nice gold items that day but I doubt the chain story could be topped for me. Bill P.

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Researchers have examined ancient DNA preserved in elephant tusks that were among the cargo of a 487-year-old shipwreck.

Their forensic examination of the 100 tusks pinpointed the devastation caused to the elephant population by centuries of ivory trade.

On this single ship, researchers found genetic evidence of 17 distinct herds of the threatened animals.

Today, scientists can find only four of those herds surviving in Africa.

The tusks were so well preserved - in cold water off the Namibian coast - that scientists were even able to find out what type of diet the elephants had, which revealed where they had lived and been hunted...

Here is that link.

Ivory: Elephant decline revealed by shipwreck cargo - BBC News

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We're getting some north winds and northeast swells today but not much surf.  The surf is only about two or three feet, and the tides are pretty flat.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net