Staffordshire Hoard
buried hoard FOUND fame 3/5
The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found — about 4,600 items and 5.1 kg of gold, unearthed by a metal detectorist in a Staffordshire field in 2009 with no prior record it existed.
Resolved (2009-07-05): Found 5 July 2009 by metal detectorist Terry Herbert in a ploughed field at Hammerwich, Staffordshire; publicly announced 24 September 2009.
Scorecard
Exists
LIKELY
band 4/5 · raw +2.77
- +2.35 · On 5 July 2009 Terry Herbert found gold artifacts while detecting a ploughed…
- +0.24 · The hoard was declared treasure and valued at 3.285 million pounds under the…
- +0.12 · The Sutton Hoo ship burial, excavated in 1939, proved that early Anglo-Saxon…
Findable now
LONG-SHOT
band 2/5 · raw +0.70
- +0.47 · The Treasure Act 1996 and the Portable Antiquities Scheme (from 1997) created…
- +0.23 · By the mid-2000s the Portable Antiquities Scheme was recording tens of thousands…
Findable (frontier)
LONG-SHOT
band 2/5 · raw +0.70
- +0.47 · The Treasure Act 1996 and the Portable Antiquities Scheme (from 1997) created…
- +0.23 · By the mid-2000s the Portable Antiquities Scheme was recording tens of thousands…
Location hypotheses
NO_LOCATION_DATA
No location hypothesis has been recorded for this treasure, so there is nothing to plot — and this tool never fabricates a map or a dig site. Per the scoring gates, an absence of location data caps Findable now at band 2 (LONG-SHOT).
What would it take?
No emerging or speculative technique changes the picture yet — the frontier findability band (LONG-SHOT) equals the current band. A breakthrough here would need a genuinely new capability, not just a maturing one.
Evidence ledger (7 verified facts)
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The find region around Lichfield lay in the heartland of the seventh-century kingdom of Mercia, whose wars under Penda and his successors are documented by Bede's Ecclesiastical History (completed c. 731).known by 0731-12-31 · diagnosticity low · confidence 0.90↳ Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (c. 731) primary
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Watling Street, the Roman road running adjacent to the eventual find field, was a major documented routeway through Mercia in the early medieval period — a plausible context for the movement and loss of war gear.known by 1900-01-01 · diagnosticity low · confidence 0.85↳ Wikipedia: Watling Street journalistic
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The Sutton Hoo ship burial, excavated in 1939, proved that early Anglo-Saxon England produced and deposited gold-and-garnet metalwork of the highest quality.known by 1939-09-01 · diagnosticity medium · confidence 0.95↳ Wikipedia: Sutton Hoo journalistic
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The Treasure Act 1996 and the Portable Antiquities Scheme (from 1997) created strong reporting incentives, and recorded treasure finds by metal detectorists in England rose sharply from the late 1990s.known by 1998-01-01 · diagnosticity medium · confidence 0.95↳ Treasure Act 1996 primary
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By the mid-2000s the Portable Antiquities Scheme was recording tens of thousands of finds a year, including Anglo-Saxon metalwork from the West Midlands — detectorists were actively and legally covering Staffordshire farmland.known by 2005-12-31 · diagnosticity medium · confidence 0.90↳ Wikipedia: Portable Antiquities Scheme journalistic
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On 5 July 2009 Terry Herbert found gold artifacts while detecting a ploughed field at Hammerwich; the excavation recovered about 4,600 items totalling 5.1 kg of gold and 1.4 kg of silver — the largest Anglo-Saxon gold hoard ever found.known by 2009-09-24 · diagnosticity high · confidence 0.98↳ Wikipedia: Staffordshire Hoard journalistic
“the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork”
↳ Kevin Leahy & Roger Bland, The Staffordshire Hoard (British Museum Press, 2009) academic -
The hoard was declared treasure and valued at 3.285 million pounds under the Treasure Act; Birmingham Museums and the Potteries Museum acquired it jointly in 2010, with the reward shared by finder and landowner.known by 2010-04-01 · diagnosticity medium · confidence 0.95↳ Wikipedia: Staffordshire Hoard journalistic