Yesterday I found a book I had been searching for months through the bookcases. It was one I had bought Paul and called 'The Mildenhall Treasure' by Roald Dahl, with illustrations by Ralph Steadman. The true story is simple enough, and tells the tale of the Roman treasure of silver tableware found in 1942, absolutely magnificent, found by ploughing in the field by a chap called Butcher, he was ploughing this four and a half acres of land for sugar beet. On contract to a farmer called Ford.
Now as the treasure was revealed Butcher who was a simple man did not know its value, and gave it to the farmer, who, strangely enough, secreted it away and it was only discovered later by a visitor a piece adorning the mantlepiece. Now I will quote from the book....
"In England there is a very curious law about finding any kind of gold or silver treasure. The law goes back hundreds of years, and is still strictly enforced today. The law states that if a person digs out of the ground, even out of his own garden, a piece of metal that is either gold or silver, it automatically becomes what is known as Treasure Trove and is the property of the Crown. The Crown doesn't in these days mean the actual king or queen. It means the country or government.
The law also states that it is a criminal offence to conceal such a find. You are simply not allowed to hide the stuff and keep it for yourself. You must report it at once, preferably to the police. And if you do report it at once, you as the finder will be entitled to receive from the government in money the full amount of the market value of the money.........
....The other curious part of this curious law is this: it is the first person who discovers the treasure in the first place who gets the reward from the government. The owner of the land gets nothing - unless the finder is trespassing on the land when he makes the discovery. But if the finder of the treasure has been hired by the owner to do a job on his land, then he, the finder, gets the reward."
There is a whole can of worms here. Today, metal detectorist clubs use this law to detect on private land with the consent of the landowner and suitable splitting of money if the 'finds' become Treasure Trove. As such, there are many cases of roguery and many objects slip through to arrive on Ebay or even the higher echelons of auction rooms such as Sotheby or Christies.
Dahl was angry that Farmer Ford got the credit for the find and the poor old ploughman got nothing, so he resolved to do something for Butcher and wrote this book and gave half the proceedings to him.
But it is Ralph Steadman art work which so shouts out from the page to you. Chaotic, you have to study them for the detail, and my camera has not captured the vivid colour. Sadly also my camera does not catch the vibrancy but if pictures speak more than words than Steadman caught the life in the fields of Suffolk.
You can find replicas of the Roman silver treasure at Mildenhall Museum here. Paul and I were I think the first visitors to see the opening of the exhibition of this treasure, it was cold and damp, typical English weather.
I had never heard of it Thelma - interesting reading.
ReplyDeleteI have a slight obsession with books, so to get rid of them always makes me sad. I could always lay my hands on any books I had in a bookshelf, so this one's mysterious disappearance was worrying. But Roald Dahl's protest (theme for this week) is good to illustrate, in more ways than one.
ReplyDeleteI know one detectorist who does the right thing and hands any treasure (recently a Roman silver ring) to the right people, after which it is supposed to be handed back to him. They take their time... He works closely with archeologists too, which is also doing the right thing. I wish I liked Ralph Steadman's illustrations more, but I find them disruptive.
ReplyDeletePortable Antiquity Scheme or known as PAS is the official body to register with. There are good people and bad people of course. The Roman Ryedale Hoard found somewhere in this area, bronze face and two small horses have been sold for £185,000, all the other metals don't figure in Treasure Trove. As for Steadman, he is better at cartoons, his imagery is somewhat disturbing.
Delete