A 41-year-old metal detectorist found a coin that she thought was a ‘piece of junk’ at first while searching a Kent field with her partner and her metal detector.
Rachel Carter, her partner, and her metal detector were searching a Kent field when they discovered a gold coin.
Later, experts said that it is a 1,500-year-old Anglo-Saxon gold pendant.
Watch the 1,500-year-old Anglo-Saxon gold pendant found in a Kent field
[rumble video_id=v4irm5 domain_id=u7nb2]
The 1,500-year-old gold pendant will now be displayed in a museum with Rachel’s name underneath it.
Ms. Carter said: “As soon as I put the detector down, I got a signal that was going mad so I dug down and pulled out this pendant.”
‘It was only about five inches down and was so perfect and gold and new-looking that at first, I thought it was a bit of junk – you’d think you could unwrap it and eat the chocolate from inside.”
“I went over to Ricky and said ‘do you reckon this is anything?’ and he was like “oh my God.”
Ms. Carter said it would be amazing to see the 1,500-year-old pendant in a museum but she would rather keep it.
She said finding the precious 1,500-year-old Anglo-Saxon gold pendant was like winning a lottery to her.
She said: “It would be lovely to see it in a museum, with my name underneath it. But to be honest, I’d rather keep it because it’s absolutely amazing – finding it was like winning the lottery, without having known what the ticket was worth.”
Andrew Richardson, outreach and archives manager at Canterbury Archaeological Trust, says he believes it is a gold coin of 6th or early 7th-century date.
He said: “We have seen these before in Kent. Imports of quantities of Byzantine and Frankish gold coinage into Kent were not infrequent, probably as gifts”.
“Anglo-Saxon England was not thought to be a coin using economy, so coins tended to either get melted down to make jewellery, or occasionally got refashioned as pendants, as is the case here.”
“This is a significant find, and the finder has done the right thing by reporting it to the Finds Liaison Officer for Kent”, he added.
[rumble video_id=v5dcgp domain_id=u7nb2]