Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Portion of Thetford Treasure to be exhibited in Thetford


If you're in Thetford for the reenactment presentations during May you will also get a chance to view at least part of the original Thetford treasure of Roman buckles, coins, jewelry, strainers, and spoons.

"The Thetford Treasure - one of the country's greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century - will leave the British Museum in early May for six month secondment to a 500-year-old town house.

The loan of almost half of the priceless collection of gold bracelets, necklaces, pendants, rings and silver spoons and strainers, dated between 380 and 390AD, represents a major coup for Ancient House: Museum of Thetford Life.

The museum, in White Hart Street, which has about 30 replicas of the Thetford Treasure on display, will get to exhibit the real thing to the public from May 12, 18 months after a top-to-toe refurbishment of the Tudor building.

The beautiful 83 piece collection, which was found in superb condition in the Gallows Hill area of Thetford in 1979, revealed a lot about life and religion at the end of the Roman era in Britain in the late 4th century."

More on the Thetford Treasure:

The magnificent Thetford Treasure was hidden in the Norfolk soil during the troubled times of the AD 390s; though it is also possible it was intended as some kind of ritual deposit. Its items typify the flamboyance of the late antique World and show explicit pagan influences at a time when Britain was officially Christian. Amongst the treasures are 33 silver spoons, 22 exquisite gold finger-rings (apparently made by the same jeweller), 4 pendants, several necklaces and a golden belt-buckle, 2" high, displaying a dancing satyr and possibly intended to be worn by a Roman army officer. - Britannia.com
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