Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| 17th Century Cross Found. Source: See Washington Post link below. |
The tiny, dirt-encrusted cross showed up in the sifting screen at the Maryland dig site, and when archaeologist Stephanie Stevens spotted it she said she gasped, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”
It was a strange object, with two cross bars instead of one, and unusual flared ends on the vertical and horizontal pieces. Stevens, the crew chief at the newly-discovered colonial fort at St. Mary’s, Md., didn’t know exactly what she had, but she knew it was important.
What she had found was a rare 370-year-old Spanish cross that had likely been made in the pilgrimage city of Caravaca, Spain, around 1650 and had made its way 4,000 miles to a meadow in southern Maryland...
Here is the link.
Rare 370-year-old Spanish cross found at St. Mary’s archaeological dig - The Washington Post
They are trying to figure out why a Spanish cross was found in an English settlement. They think it might have been traded by the Spanish to an indigenous person and then to the English. I don't think that explanation is necessarily the best. Anyhow, it is interesting reading.
And it seems they weren't very familiar with Caravaca crosses. Live and learn.
If you've done much metal detecting, you've probably found a few yourself - not necessarily that old though.
Deagan, in her book, Artifacts of the Spanish Colonies of Florida and the Caribbean, 1500 - 1800, shows a few. Below is one illustration from that book.
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| 17th Century Caravaca Cross from Santa Catalina de Gaule on Amelia Island. Source: Deagan, 2002. |
And here is a little additional information on the Caravaca cross from the same source.
If you search through TreasureBeachesReport.blogspot.com, you'll find a variety of examples.
I should add that not all Caravaca crosses are old. You can find inexpensive modern ones too.
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Treasure Hunter Unearths Fortune in 2,000-Year-Old Gold Coins (newsweek.com)
Thanks to Superrick for that link.
Here is an excerpt from another article on the same thing.The 41 gold coins were minted more than 2,000 years ago and are the first known Celtic gold treasure in Brandenburg, Manja Schüle, the Minister of Culture in Brandenburg announced in December 2021.
The coins are curved, a feature that inspired the German name "regenbogenschüsselchen," which translates to "rainbow cups." Just like the legend that there's a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, "in popular belief, rainbow cups were found where a rainbow touched the Earth," Marjanko Pilekić, a numismatist and research assistant at the Coin Cabinet of the Schloss Friedenstein Gotha Foundation in Germany, who studied the hoard, told Live Science in an email...
2,000-year-old Celtic hoard of gold 'rainbow cups' discovered in Germany | Live Science
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I mentioned disappearing signals yesterday, and Bill P. sent the following message relative to that.
In my experience, especially in water hunting, the scoop can flip a coin on edge and it will virtually vanish. In the water I usually fan the hole with my foot after the target vanishes and many times the coin will lay flat again. Harder to do in dry or wet sand. If your machine gets a strong signal at first, the target is still down there somewhere. Don't give up. Bill Popp
That is a good reminder. Just because the signal disappears doesn't mean the target disappeared. Foot fanning works well when wading in shallow water. You can often pop the target right out of the hole that way. In some cases, it will simply be reoriented enough so you can find it again.
What I was talking about however, was wet sand situations when the coin was not moved, but the hole creates a disruption in the ground mineralization, which can then make faint signals disappear. That can happen in shallow water too, but is less of a problem in shallow water.
You've probably noticed that if you are running around maximum sensitivity and a wave runs up on the beach, the line between the newly wet sand where the water stopped and the dryer sand above that creates a change in mineralization, which can cause the metal detector to give a false signal. A newly dug hole can similarly create a sharp disruption in mineralization at the edge of the hole, which can make the target more difficult to detect even if it is deeper and has not been moved at all. That can be even more of a problem when you have black sand, wet sand or anything that increases the amount of ground mineralization. There are a couple of approaches to dealing with that.
One is what Bill recommends - not giving up. Unless you got it out and didn't realize it, the target is still there, and if you keep digging, you'll eventually get it out of the hole. When enlarging a hole containing a object that quit producing a signal, try not to create a sharp dividing line between the undisturbed sand and the hole. Make the hole wider.
Hole 1 would be the most likely create a disappearing signal under wet sand conditions. The hole is straight down, which creates a sharp division between the undisturbed sand and the sand at the bottom of the hole.
Hole 2 not only creates such a sharp division between the sand outside and inside the hole, but allows you to get your coil in to locate the deep target more successfully.
Maybe you dug a hole that goes straight down but after a few scoops can no longer hear the signal. If the target has not been moved, as shown in the illustration for Hole 3, you can move some of the surface mineralization around the hole (for example black sand or saltwater wet sand) by scraping some of the surface sand away. That will often be enough to allow you to get a signal again.
It is often handy to have a wide enough hole to be able to move your coil around in the hole.
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| Source: MagicSeaWeed.com. |
Looks like the predicted surf for Friday is now a little higher than predicted yesterday, but not much.
The north wind will be mostly Thursday, then shifting Friday.
The tides are still not big.
Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net