Analysing Treasure
Treasure is one of the most exciting words in
the English language. It conjures up dramatic images of discovery.
At the British Museum it certainly means discovery.
A treasure can be anything of historical importance, but it also
has a long legal history in this country. The law of Treasure Trove
dates back to at least the twelfth century. It allowed the king to
claim any gold or silver that was found, if the rightful owners
could not be traced.
In 1996, the Treasure Act created a new definition that now
applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This defines
treasure items as finds that are at least 300 years old and which
contain over 10% silver or gold or are groups of coins found
together. Any objects associated with these finds are also defined
as Treasure. Since 2003 groups of two or more base-metal
prehistoric objects also count as Treasure.
Treasure items are offered to the British
Museum and other museums to acquire and the finder and landowner
are rewarded with their full market value. An item that is reported
as potential Treasure under the Treasure Act often goes through a
long process here at the Museum from its discovery to being
acquired. But other items which do not count as treasure in this
legal sense are also important in revealing our history.
The creation of the Portable Antiquities
Scheme, and the creation of a network of finds liaison
officers, in 1997 has allowed us to record these finds in
a systematic way that adds to our understanding of the past.
Every find is an opportunity not only to
examine a particular object, but also to add to our knowledge of
the people and societies who made and used it. In spring 2004, as a
British Museum curator was investigating a hoard found with a
metal-detector on farmland near Oxford. He found an extremely rare
third century coin bearing evidence of a previously unrecognised
rebel Roman ‘emperor’, Domitianus, who was so little known that
some scholars even doubted his existence.
A large team of people, from curators to
scientists and conservators, is needed to study each treasure find.
A quick and non-destructive way of working out an object's gold or
silver content is by using X-ray fluorescence. This process
determines the proportions of different types of metal and other
elements the object contains.
Analysing an ancient object in this way is not
just important for legal reasons. Discovering what it is made of
can help us work out when and where it was made. Other techniques,
such as examining an object under a scanning electron microscope
(SEM) or with X-radiography can also provide information about how
it was made.
The type of information provided by these
scientific techniques is very important. Indeed, in some cases, the
scientific analysis of a new discovery has provided the most
important evidence for telling that discovery's story.
Conservators, trained to study and preserve ancient objects,
also have a role to play in investigating new treasure finds.
Objects need careful cleaning or they might deteriorate if they are
not treated. This has to be done with great care and in the right
way, or an object might be damaged or even destroyed.