For 3 Years, They Quietly Dug Up One of the Biggest Treasures in England: the Melsonby Hoard

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/world/europe/melsonby-iron-age-find-uk.html

For 3 Years, They Quietly Dug Up One of the Biggest Treasures in England
Archaeologists can finally publicly discuss the Melsonby Hoard, a collection of Iron Age artifacts that they have been excavating since a metal detectorist found it in 2021.


One of the 800 Iron Age objects excavated near the village of Melsonby, in North Yorkshire, by a team of archaeologists from Durham University, in a handout photograph from the university.Credit...Raoul Dixon/Durham University, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


Tom Moore got the call just before Christmas in 2021. The head of the University of Durham’s archaeology department, Mr. Moore was well-known in history circles in Yorkshire, in northeast England. It was why he had received the urgent message, from a man who claimed to have stumbled on something big.

“I think it’s Iron Age,” said the caller, Peter Heads, an amateur metal detectorist. And then, no one said a word.

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Since Mr. Heads’s finding in 2021, a team of archaeologists working at the site has collected a total of more than 800 objects, most dating to the Iron Age. Among them are cauldrons, a wine-mixing bowl, coral-coated horse harnesses and ceremonial spears.

They also include 28 iron wheels, presumably from a chariot or wagon — the kinds of transportation mechanisms never before believed to have existed in such size and scope among the elite of Britain’s Iron Age.

Experts said that the collection of artifacts — dubbed the Melsonby hoard, for the North Yorkshire town where it was found — stands as an example of how Britain’s complicated treasure laws can work to safeguard potential finds. British law defines anything older than 300 years and consisting of at least 10 percent precious metal as “treasure,” and thus the property of the British crown.

After Mr. Heads stumbled on a few pieces of ancient metal, his decision to immediately notify local historians allowed them to quickly protect the site and begin moving the discovery through the legal process.