Amateurs Making Incredible Finds Sometimes some incredible finds are made by ordinary people. The irony of this is archaeologists may have spent many years looking for similar items without finding them. Archaeology is one of the scientific fields others without training can participate in. I am not saying becoming an archaeologist is a waste of time, I think it is a noble profession and takes all sorts of patience. What I am saying is ordinary people have a chance of finding ancient artifacts and sometimes they do. A recent find was made by a man with a metal detector. He decided to go to a former Roman battlefield in of all places Switzerland. The battlefield had been picked over by archaeologists who had determined they had gotten everything there was to get, but he was not convinced. He found hundreds of other artifacts which came from the battle of the Romans with the Rhaetians. Among those items was an incredible Roman knife which was made from iron and was inlaid with silver and brass. The knife was about 12 inches long and some have called it a short sword. It is thought it was buried after the battle by a Roman soldier as an offering to the gods. For iron from about 15 B.C. which was buried, it was in good condition. An Indian man who was an amateur archaeologist was walking in the jungle searching for ancient artifacts. Sometimes these things are very hard to find and they may be small and in different pieces. Sometimes only fragments are found and they are incomplete. In this case things were very different. The man came across a building in the jungle. He decided to check it out. It had been looted but it was hard to figure out when. He looked the building over and found it was composed of three parts. The building was an ancient temple and had a sanctum sanctorum, mandapam and a flag post. There was art such as carvings and sculptures which match the art from about the 9th century. It is amazing this was not discovered before and those who had looted it didn’t realize what they had found. Sometimes even scientists do some archaeology as a hobby even when they are not archaeologists. One such person was a chemist who liked to do archaeology as a hobby. He probably never expected to find anything earth shattering and would have been happy with some ancient souvenirs, but that was not to be. He was about to make a discovery which would change everything. He had discovered a dinosaur nest, but more importantly, what was in the nest. There were dinosaur embryo bones which accounted for almost every stage of embryonic development for this species. Because of this, knowledge about the growth rate was discovered which accounted for the rapid growth of this species. Sometimes things are found where none are expected. A history buff was walking in Florida when he couldn’t believe his eyes. Laying on the ground were artifacts from the 16th century. The artifacts were pottery shards. I guess most people would have ignored them, not realizing what they were and their value to the scientific community but not this amateur archaeologist. He recognized them immediately. Because of his sharp eyed discovery, a lost Spanish city in Florida was found. It is said the settlement was made in 1559 and led by Tristan de Luna. Florida is claiming it is the first European settlement in the United States, but not all agree. Saint Augustine was founded six years later. The de Luna settlement was destroyed by a hurricane which also sank five ships. Some of the ships were found in Pensacola Bay in the 1990s but never the settlement until now. Two amateur metal detection enthusiasts have made an incredible discovery. They are two members of an amateur metal-detector club. They decided to do a little detecting on a hill overlooking the Thames Valley in England. They couldn’t have picked a better spot to start detecting. What they found was probably the last thing they expected. The detectors went off and indicated iron. It was their third visit to the area. First, they pulled up two bronze bowls which they reported to the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading and they decided to help on the dig. The site turned up to be the burial site of what has become known as the Marlow Warlord. In the grave was a decorated sword, along with all sorts of luxury items. It is suspected this was a royal burial. Sometimes what is found doesn’t seem to be very exciting at the time, but can turn out to be very important. A group of volunteers were examining aerial surveys of the border lands between Cornwall and Devon England. To their surprise they discovered signs of many previously unknown settlements. They have gone over about one tenth of the material and so far, 30 unknown settlements have been found. Their discoveries have redrawn the map for Roman settlements. The next discovery is every amateurs dream. An amateur archaeologist was checking out an area in Denmark when he came across the unthinkable, it was a hoard of gold from about 1,500 years ago. He had used his metal detector to make the find. What he found was a bunch of gold coins and medallions from the Roman Empire. He found the hoard on a school mate’s property which he had obtained permission to search. The gold itself was worth about $56,000 but the value to collectors is probably far more. Some countries have a richer past than others and no doubt England is one of those countries. Many places and artifacts are known about but not found and that is what pushes people to get out there and test their theories about where these places and things might be. A monastery which was said to have been built in England in 635 A.D. is known about, but its former location is not. An amateur was taking part in a crowd funded search for the monastery when he made an amazing discovery. He found a grave marker from a much earlier time which indicated the site of the monastery. I personally can understand the urge to get out and look for stuff. There is a certain fascination involved. To me one of the most exciting things is finding something with a lot of history behind it, especially if it leads to something being found which can change that history. I think that is what draws all these amateurs to archaeology and metal detection.
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