Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| A Tudor chain associated with Henry V111 and Katherine of Aragon found in Warwickshire by Charlie Clarke while metal detecting. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian |
Charlie Clarke had been metal detectoring for just six months when he stumbled across what he calls his “once in a liftime – no, once in 30 lifetimes”, find. He was exploring a Warwickshire field, turning up “junk” and about to call it a day, when a clear beep on his detector led him to dig to the depth of his elbow. What he saw there caused him to shriek “like a little schoolgirl, to be honest. My voice went pretty high-pitched”.
What the Birmingham cafe owner had discovered was a huge and quite spectacular early Tudor pendant and chain, made in gold and enamel and bearing the initials and symbols of Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon...
Metal detectorist unearths Tudor gold pendant linked to Henry VIII in Warwickshire (msn.com)
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Last week, I think it was, I was flipping through the channels while some commercials were on, and I caught a few minutes near the end of an episode of Oak Island. An archaeologist was telling the team that it was too bad the finds didn't have any interpretable context because the entire island had been churned over and over. Those aren't his exact words but that is what he was saying. The team either didn't get what he said or didn't want to admit it. TV production on this show requires making every piece of rusty iron significant or important. They have to make everything look like it fits into the big treasure mystery whether it does or not. If there is a single story emerging from it all, it is the story of making a TV show that can linger on for years. The disorganized hunt doesn't produce answers but does help the program linger on. While every find does have a history, and it can be interesting to try to assess or figure out each find, the tease of the show is one that a huge treasure of some kind was carefully secreted away centuries ago by somebody, maybe the Knights Templar, but the island, like most places in the world, has a long history separate from that single hypothesized event. It isn't surprising to find things from various countries and time periods, but they try to fit each one into a single event or story. And after all these years of searching, we still know no more about the "treasure" than when they started.
There is one TV show that is even worse. Ancient Aliens. They try to fit everything and anything into their theory.
Back to Oak Island. I anyone could confuse that piece of a copper/bronze coin for silver, but they did. Even on TV it didn't look at all like silver. Then XRF proved it was copper/bronze.
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Talk about miscellaneious find, as I said, I struck out on my last bottle hunt, but did bring home a couple items.
Here is the first.
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| AETNA Fire Brick. |
Here is what I found on the company.
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| Source: Welcome to Oak Hill, Ohio (oakhillchamber.org) On the same hunt, I found this shovel that folds up to fit in a backpack or something. The folded size is only about one foot long.
The top folds down and the bottom folds up. I might use this on a metal detecting hunt someday. ---
Looks like we'll get a little increase in the surf. If I had to bet if it was going to be bigger or smaller than predicted by the graph, I'd have to go with smaller. Nonetheless, it is worth watching. Hard to believe we've already gone through one month of the new year. Good hunting, TreasureGuide@comcast.net |
