Mildenhall Museum, King Street, Mildenhall, Suffolk IP28 7EX
( 01638 716970 : info@mildenhallmuseum.co.uk
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The Mildenhall Treasure
Who found the treasure | Are the stories true | Troubled Times
The Fens in Roman times | Who owned the Mildenhall Treasure | The Treasure
On
a bitter January afternoon in 1943, during the dark days of World War II,
ploughman Gordon Butcher unearthed a big metal dish at West Row. He fetched his
boss, Sydney Ford, an agricultural engineer who collected local antiquities.
They returned to the field. As snow began to fall, they dug out more dishes,
bowls and spoons. To their amazement they uncovered 34 items in all.
Black with age, they looked like pewter or lead. In the fading light Ford stuffed the finds into a sack and took them home. A few were bent. Ford had one of his workmen straighten them out, then he put them on the mantelpiece.
After the war, a chance visitor realised that Ford’s ‘pewter’ was really Roman silver. The coroner was told and an inquest held.
The hoard was declared Treasure Trove on July 1st 1946
and became Crown property.
Newspapers
speculated that the find was worth £50,000, a huge sum for the time. Ford and
Butcher shared a reward of £2,000. Because Ford delayed reporting the find,
they did not receive the full market value. The Treasure was acquired by the
British Museum. It can be seen there to this day.
When
spectacular finds are not reported straight away, people get suspicious and
rumours
start. A small Roman building with under floor heating once stood near the
find-spot, but is that just a coincidence? A persistent local story tells that
the Mildenhall Treasure was larger, that it was first discovered elsewhere, and
that a few items were sent abroad before the rest were reburied where Ford and
Butcher found them. The very lack of evidence fuels speculation. If there is
truth in any of the stories, it is unlikely that we shall ever know.
Almost
all the silver and gold hoards in East Anglia were buried in the late 4th
century AD. History tells of considerable unrest, Saxon pirates were menacing
southeastern Britain from the sea. Pictish and Scottish marauders were
harassing the province from the north. Religious conflict rocked the Empire when
the emperor Julian the Apostate (360-63AD) tried to turn back to paganism from
Christianity. The Empire itself was beginning to break up. It is small wonder
that the wealthy buried their riches for safe keeping. We can only guess what
disasters kept them from recovering their goods.
Archaeology
tells us that the fen edge was well populated and prosperous in Roman times. The
fens provided wildfowl and fish. The land was good for growing crops and
raising sheep. Grain and wool made the area wealthy. Two major roads, the
Icknield Way and the Peddars Way, linked East Anglia to the rest of Britain. Fen
rivers led to the sea, highway to the Empire. The Mildenhall area appears to
have shared in the prosperity. Several coin hoards have been found, and an
excavation at Beck Row in the spring of 1999 revealed traces of a very large
timber building, perhaps a barn or grain store for a big farming estate.
Further
evidence of East Anglia's wealth comes from 3rd and 4th century hoards: silver
from Mildenhall and Water Newton (near Peterborough); the gold and silver
Thetford Treasure; gold and silver jewellery from a jeweler's workshop at
Snettisham, Norfolk, and the early 5th century Hoxne hoard of more than 14,000
gold and silver coins, tableware and jewellery, excavated in 1992.
The
hoard is very high quality. It contains a lot of silver and bears Christian
symbols. The owner was apparently a very wealthy Christian, probably someone
important. Some experts have suggested the general Lupicinus, who was sent from
Gaul by the pagan Emperor Julian in 360AD to quell barbarian attacks in
Britain. Could the Great Dish have been a gift from the emperor himself? We know
that Lupicinus was recalled to Rome, where he fell from favour and was
arrested. If the treasure were his, (and we will never know for sure) he was
never able to return and collect it.
The
treasure comprises over thirty items of silver tableware, including platters,
spoons, goblets and bowls, the greater part richly decorated. The Great Dish is
the most spectacular. At 60.5cm (almost 2ft) in diameter, it weighs 8.256kg
(over 18 pounds). Its finely executed reliefs show a band of dancing, drunken
revellers including Hercules, Pan, and Bacchus, the god of wine.
A
pair of goblets with shallow bowls, moulded stems, and leaf decoration under
each broad base may have doubled as stemmed platters when turned upside down. A
fluted bowl 40.8cm (16 inches) in diameter, with alternating plain and foliate
panels, has swinging handles, whose looped ends are shaped like swans’ heads.
Four silver-gilt handles cast in the shape of dolphins were once soldered to the five ladel bowls. There are also eight spoons. Of these, seven have pear-shaped bowls. Three bear leafy decoration resembling that of the fluted dish. The rest are inscribed. Of these, three are almost identical, having the Christian Chi-Rho symbol between Alpha and Omega engraved in the bowl. The last two carry names and may be christening spoons: one (the only spoon with an oval bowl) reads PAPITTEDO VIVAS (long life to Papittedus), the other PASCENTIA VIVAS (long life to Pascentia).
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