"The most important of the findings are 1,300 antique silver coins, both large and small," said Mohammed al-Agha, tourism and antiquities minister in the Islamist-run government. He said archaeologists had also uncovered a black basalt grinder, a coin with a cross etched on it, and the remains of walls and arches believed to have been built in 320 BC.

They also discovered a "mysterious" underground compartment with a blocked entrance that appeared to be a tomb, Agha said. The Palestinian Authority has been carrying out archaeological excavations since the 1990s, but this was the first major find to be announced by the Hamas-run government.

The archaeological dig, still under way, is close to where a vast network of smuggling tunnels provides a vital economic lifeline amid strict Israeli and Egyptian closures imposed after the takeover.

It's an "incredible collection of material -- absolutely unprecedented," said Kevin Leahy, an archaeologist with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a voluntary group that records finds made by members of the public. "We've moved into new ground with this material." Because the find is so large and important, experts haven't been able to say yet how much it is worth. They hope to make a valuation within 13 months, Staffordshire Council said.

The hoard was first discovered in July by Englishman Terry Herbert, who was using a metal detector he bought more than a decade ago in a jumble sale for only a few pounds (dollars). He belongs to a local metal detecting club in Staffordshire and was just out enjoying his hobby when he made the find. There was so much gold at the site that Herbert said he was soon seeing it in his sleep. "Imagine you're at home and somebody just keeps putting money through your letterbox. That's what it was like," Herbert told Britain's Press Association. "As soon as I closed my eyes I saw gold patterns. I didn't think it was ever going to end."

Herbert found 500 items before he called in experts, who then found a further 800 articles in the soil. Officials aren't saying exactly where the gold was found, other than to say it was in Staffordshire, in north-central England. "Pieces were just literally sat at the top of the soil, at the grass," said Ian Wykes, of the county council. He said the hoard had been unearthed by recent plowing.

Most of the pieces appear to date from the 7th century, though experts can't agree on when the hoard first entered the ground, Staffordshire Council said. The pieces are almost all war gear, Leahy said. There are very few dress fittings and no feminine dress fittings; there are only two gold buckles, and they were probably used for harness armor, he said. Sword hilt fittings and pieces of helmets, all elaborately decorated, are among the more remarkable finds.

"The quantity of gold is amazing but, more importantly, the craftsmanship is consummate," Leahy said. "This was the very best that the Anglo-Saxon metalworkers could do, and they were very good. Tiny garnets were cut to shape and set in a mass of cells to give a rich, glowing effect; it is stunning." The items belonged to the elite -- aristocracy or royalty, he said, though it's not clear who the original or final owners were, why they buried it, or when. "It looks like a collection of trophies, but it is impossible to say if the hoard was the spoils from a single battle or a long and highly successful military career," he said.

More work will help determine how the hoard came to be buried in the field, Leahy said. Many of the objects are inlaid with garnets, which Leahy called "stunning" and "as good as it gets." The filigree on the items is "incredible," he said. Some are decorated in an Anglo-Saxon style consisting of strange animals intertwined with each other. That decoration appears on what is believed to be the cheek-piece of a helmet, decorated with a frieze of running, interlaced animals.

A strip of gold bearing a Biblical inscription in Latin is one of the most significant and controversial finds, Staffordshire Council said. One expert believes the lettering dates from the 7th or early 8th centuries, but another is sure it dates from the 8th or 9th centuries. The inscription, misspelled in places, is probably from the Book of Numbers and reads: "Surge domine et dissipentur inimici tui et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua," or "Rise up, o Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed."

Regardless of the exact date, the hoard is certainly from a period of great turmoil, when kingdoms with tribal loyalties battled each other in a state of perpetual warfare, experts say. The land was also split along religious lines. Christianity was the principal religion, having gained ground at the expense of local pagan forms of worship, experts said. At least two crosses are among the items in the hoard. The largest is intact, though it has been folded, possibly to make it fit into a small space prior to burial, Staffordshire Council said. The folding may mean it was buried by pagans who had little respect for the Christian symbol, but it may have also been done by Christians who had taken it from someone else's shrine, experts said.

The hoard will likely help rewrite history, experts said. "Earlier finds will be looked at in the context of what we find amongst this mass of material," Leahy said. Said Leslie Webster, the former keeper of the Department of Prehistory and Europe at the British Museum, "This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England."

Excavation of the field where the hoard was found is now complete, and all items that were found are being held at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The most important objects will go on exhibit from Friday until October 13, after which they will go to the British Museum in London for valuation.

Once the items have been valued, Staffordshire Council said it hopes a selection of the pieces can go on temporary display at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent. Once the hoard is sold, the market value of the find will go to Herbert and the owner of the field where the hoard was discovered. The pair have agreed to split the amount.

Experts say the coins have spent an estimated 1,700 years underground. The stunning collection of coins, most of which were found inside the broken brown pot, was uncovered by Nick during a search of land in the Shrewsbury area - just a month after he took up the hobby of metal detecting.

His amazing find is one of the largest collections of Roman coins ever discovered in Shropshire. And the haul could be put on display at Shrewsbury's new £10million heritage centre, it was revealed today. It is also the biggest collection of Roman coins to be found in Britain this year.

Nick, from Ford, Shropshire, said he never expected to find anything on his first treasure hunt - especially anything of any value. He recalled the discovery and described it as "fantastically exciting." Nick said: "The top of the pot had been broken in the ground and a large number of the coins spread in the area. "All of these were recovered during the excavation with the help of a metal detector. "This added at least another 300 coins to the total - it's fantastically exciting. I never expected to find such treasure on my first outing with the detector."

The coins have now been sent to the British Museum for detailed examination, before a report is sent to the coroner. Experts are expected to spend several months cleaning and separating the coins, which have fused together. They will also give them further identification before sending them to the coroner. A treasure trove inquest is then expected to take place next year. Peter Reavill, finds liaison officer from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, records archaeological finds made by the public in England and Wales. He said the coins were probably payment to a farmer or community at the end of a harvest. Speaking to the Shropshire Star, Mr Reavill said the coins appear to date from the period 320AD to 340AD, late in the reign of Constantine I. He said: "The coins date to the reign of Constantine I when Britain was being used to produce food for the Roman Empire. It is possible these coins were paid to a farmer who buried them and used them as a kind of piggy-bank."

Mr Reavill said that among the coins were issues celebrating the anniversary of the founding of Rome and Constantinople. In total the coins and the pot weigh more than 70lb. He added: "This is probably one of the largest coin hoards ever discovered in Shropshire. The finder, Nick Davies, bought his first metal detector a month ago and this is his first find made with it. The coins were placed in a very large storage jar which had been buried in the ground about 1,700 years ago." However, Mr Reavill declined to put a figure on either the value of the coins or the pot until the findings of the inquest are known, but he described the discovery as a "large and important" find. Mr Reavill said the exact location of the find could not be revealed for security reasons.

Metal-detector users David and Andrew Whelan, a father-and- son team, uncovered the hoard in 2007, in Harrogate, Yorkshire, and handed it to the local representative of a national program that registers archaeological finds. The treasure was valued at 1.08 million pounds and has been bought for the nation, with the money split between the finders and landowner.

Andrew Whelan, a 37-year-old real-estate surveyor, recalled setting out on a "fairly typical dreary January day" with his retired father to scour a field that had never yielded anything. Shortly after arriving, David ran over to say he’d hit a hoard.

"The first thing that we found was the bowl, a cup. There were bits of silver chains poking through, and just the edge of a couple of coins," said Andrew Whelan in an interview. He described seeing ingots, a gold bracelet, and perfectly stacked coins. The treasure was placed in plastic Tupperware, taken home, and reported.

The treasure consists of 67 precious-metal objects including bracelets, ornaments, and ingots; 617 coins -- and the gilt silver vessel that contained most of the smaller objects, according to the British Museum. The vessel was made in France or Germany in the mid-9th century, and seems to have been intended for church services.

The pirate ship Forbes sank off the coast of Borneo in 1806. Dresden resident Martin Wenzel and his partner Klaus Keppler spent €3 million of their own money over the past two years trawling the tropical waters for loot from the Forbes and other vessels, the newspaper reported.

"Up until now, we’ve searched 35 wrecks, two had valuable cargo. Now the costs for our three salvage ships, 50 man crew, the licences and all that, are covered," Wenzel told Bild.

The haul from the Forbes turned up 1.5 tonnes of silver coins, gold jewellery, cannons, crystal, Ming porcelain, and 400 bottles of wine. The newspaper reported that the coins alone are worth at least €7 million.

The Forbes was a prolific trading and buccaneering ship that had King George III's approval to attack and plunder foreign vessels. It had raided at least one Chinese ship, as there was Ming dynasty porcelain on board, Mr Wenzel said. The Forbes had carried opium and iron from Calcutta to the far east and was, according to the Asiatic Annual Register, on its way home with a "considerable amount" of loot and cargo. But shortly after it raided a Dutch brig, both ships were driven onto a rock reef at five knots, the register writes.

The crew survived and piled into three lifeboats. Then, after "undergoing the greatest distresses from want of water and provisions under a scorching sun without an awning or anything to cover them" they were picked up by another English ship. The Forbes' captain, a Scotsman named Frazer Sinclair, went on to skipper other English ships and was decorated by George III for his bold raids on foreign vessels. National Archives records suggest Captain Sinclair died in 1816 and describe him as "Mariner of Calcutta".

"At first, everything on the ocean floor looks encrusted and worthless. But when you hold the treasure in your hands, it’s an indescribable rush of adrenaline. You’re witness to times past," Wenzel told Bild.

Wenzel flies to Indonesia six times a year to keep track of the salvage operations. His partner Keppler is there permanently. Wenzel said his next trip is already booked. "We’ve found clues in shipping archives about a wreck off of East Timor that had two tonnes of gold on board," Wenzel said. "But we don’t yet have the salvage license. They are extremely expensive and the political situation there is difficult."

Mrs Hannaby, 57, from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, heard her metal detector's tell-tale beep while out on one of her regular six-hour Sunday detecting walks with her son, woodcarver Michael, 33.

For 500 years, the treasure had lain buried four inches below the ground, despite repeated ploughing. The discovery is all the more astonishing as this was not the first time the Hannabys had scoured the arable field between Ashridge and Great Gaddesden.

"You get a buzz every time you get a signal, but chances are it won't be anything," said Mrs Hannaby. "This time, it popped up all of a sudden," said her son. "You can literally miss things by inches. We couldn't believe it. We always dreamed of finding treasure." And the pair struck gold again when the landowner refused Mrs Hannaby's offer to split the money equally and said he wanted only 30 per cent, saying he would never have known about the treasure if not for her.

Under the Treasure Act of 1996, finders must report potential treasure such as gold and silver objects more than 300 years old. Finders are offered the market value for their discoveries which museums have first option to buy.

At 2.8cm by 2.3cm, the treasure is barely larger than a postage stamp, but its importance is exciting experts. Roger Bland, head of treasure at the British Museum, describes it as an 'important find', and regrets that the museum does not currently have the funds to buy it.

Carolyn Miner, sculpture specialist at Sotheby's, was 'awestruck' when the Hannabys first showed the treasure to her and will auction it in London on July 9. As one of only three of its kind to have survived, the find could be worth even more than £250,000, and its engraving is being compared to that of the Middleham Jewel, which sold at auction for £1.3 million in 1986, and was later resold to the Yorkshire Museum for £2.5 million.

Odyssey Marine Exploration hasn't found any gold this time, but it's looking for an even bigger jackpot. The company's research indicates the HMS Victory was carrying 4 tons of gold coins that could be worth considerably more than the treasure that Odyssey raised from a sunken Spanish galleon in 2007, co-founder Greg Stemm said ahead of a news conference set for Monday in London.

So far, Odyssey has recovered two brass cannons from the wreck of the Victory and continues to examine and map the debris field, which lies about 330 feet beneath the surface, Stemm said. The company said it is negotiating with the British government over collaborating on the project.

"This is a big one, just because of the history," Stemm said. "Very rarely do you solve an age-old mystery like this." Odyssey said the 31 bronze cannons and other evidence on the wreck allowed definitive identification of the HMS Victory, 175-foot sailing ship that was separated from its fleet during a storm and sank in the English Channel on Oct. 4, 1744, with at least 900 men aboard. The ship was the largest and, with 110 bronze cannons, the most heavily armed vessel of its day. It was the inspiration for the HMS Victory famously commanded by Adm. Horatio Nelson decades later.

Odyssey was searching for other valuable shipwrecks in the English Channel when it came across the Victory. Stemm wouldn't say exactly where the ship was found for fear of attracting plunderers, though he said it wasn't close to where it was expected to be. "We found this more than 50 miles from where anybody would have thought it went down," Stemm said. Federal court records filed by Odyssey in Tampa seeking the exclusive salvage rights said the site is 25 to 40 miles from the English coast, outside of its territorial waters.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman said Sunday the government was aware of Odyssey's claim to have found the Victory. "Assuming the wreck is indeed that of a British warship, her remains are sovereign immune," he said on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy. "This means that no intrusive action may be taken without the express consent of the United Kingdom." He would not say whether the government had begun talks with Odyssey over the future of the find.

Newspapers of the day and other historical records analyzed by the company indicated that the Victory sank off the Channel Island of Alderney near Cherbourg, France. A 1991 British postage stamp depicts the Victory crashing on the rocks there. Pieces of the ship had washed up in various places, but its final resting place had remained a mystery. The belief that the Victory had crashed onto the rocks had marred an otherwise exemplary service record of the ship's commander, Sir John Balchin, and a lighthouse keeper on Alderney was prosecuted for failing to keep the light on. Odyssey believes the discovery exonerates both men.

"As far as the family is concerned, it is an astonishing revelation," said Robert Balchin, a 66-year-old British university administrator and direct descendant of the commander. "It's as if he's sort of come alive again. "When I went to see this extraordinary find of the cannon with the coat of arms of the king on the side, it was really a wonderful feeling to know that Sir John Balchin saw that every day, and it brought a very special communion with the past."

The HMS Victory was returning from Lisbon, Portugal, and was probably transporting 100,000 gold Portuguese coins for merchants, according to Odyssey's research. The ship had sailed there to help rescue a Mediterranean convoy blockaded by the French in the River Tagus at Lisbon.

The wreck site is roughly 70 feet by 200 feet and littered with other debris, Odyssey said. Its research ship, Odyssey Explorer, is equipped with a remote underwater robot capable of carefully removing the smallest of items from the bottom and shooting high-resolution photos and video.

Odyssey, a publicly traded corporation, announced in May 2007 that it had raised 17 tons of silver coins from an Atlantic Ocean shipwreck. The company later said it believed the wreck to be the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes y las Animas, which sank off Portugal in 1804.

Shortly afterward, the Spanish government sued Odyssey in federal court in Tampa to claim the treasure, arguing that the shipwreck was never abandoned by Spain. The case is pending. Some in the Spanish government have called the company 21st-century pirates, and twice in the months after the 2007 announcement, ships from Spain's Civil Guard seized Odyssey ships off the Spanish coast. Both ships and their crews were released within a week.

The company's relationship with the British government has been more cordial. Odyssey had already negotiated an agreement with British officials regarding the search for the HMS Sussex, which sank in the western Mediterranean in 1694 with gold coins aboard.

Jude Plouviez, of the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, said the coins dated from 40BC to AD15. They are thought to have been minted by predecessors of Iceni Queen Boudicca. Ms Plouviez said their value when in circulation had been estimated at a modern equivalent of between £500,000 and £1m, but they were likely to be worth less than that now.

"It's a good, exciting find. It gives us a lot of new information about the late Iron Age, and particularly East Anglia in the late Iron Age. The discovery is important because it highlights the probable political, economic and religious importance of an area. It certainly suggests there was a significant settlement nearby. As far as we understand, it was occupied by wealthy tribes or subtribes," she said.

Ms Plouviez said the find was the largest collection of Iron Age gold coins found in Britain since 1849, when a farm worker unearthed between 800 and 2,000 gold staters in a field near Milton Keynes. She said secret excavations had been carried out on the latest find in Suffolk after a man reported it to the council's archaeological service in October.

The staters, which each weigh about 5g, will now be valued ahead of a treasure trove inquest. "We don't know how much they will be worth but it will be less than they were at the time," said Ms Plouviez.

"After the treasure trove inquest, they will be offered to museums at their current value." She said the exact location of the find would not be made public but added "thorough" searches of the area had not uncovered any further artefacts.

Researchers discovered the coins at the beginning of the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which started at sunset on Sunday. One of the customs of the holiday is to give "gelt," or coins, to children, and the archaeologists are referring to the find as "Hanukkah money."

The 1,400-year-old coins were found in the Giv'ati car park in the City of David in the walls around Jerusalem National Park, a site that has yielded other finds, including a well-preserved gold earring with pearls and precious stones.

They were in a collapsed building that dates back to the 7th century, the end of the Byzantine period. The coins bear a likeness of Heraclius, who was the Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641. In that style, the emperor is clad with military garb and is holding a cross in his right hand. One the other side, there is the sign of the cross.

Authorities said the excavation of the building where the hoard was discovered is in its early stages. They are attempting to learn about the building and its owner and the circumstances of its destruction. "Since no pottery vessel was discovered adjacent to the hoard, we can assume that it was concealed inside a hidden niche in one of the walls of the building. It seems that with its collapse, the coins piled up there among the building debris," Ben-Ami and Tchekhanovets said.

Maurice Richardson, who unearthed the 2,200-year-old gold collar near Newark will not get to keep it but has received an undisclosed reward and his lucky find has been acquired by his local museum. "I was only in the field because a customer kept me late," Richardson, a tree surgeon, told the Guardian newspaper. "Normally I'd never want to go into this field because a plane crashed there in the last war, and the whole place is littered with bits of metal."

Richardson's first discovery in the field was a piece of World War Two scrap metal but as he bent down to throw it away, his metal detector emitted a louder beep. It was then that he discovered the collar, which was hailed by a leading expert as one of the most important finds of its kind in years.

"It's a fabulous thing, the best Iron Age find in 50 years," J.D. Hill, head of the British Museum in London's Iron Age department, told the paper. "When I first saw a picture of it, I thought somebody was pulling my leg because it is so like the Sedgeford torc in our collection that it must have been made by the same hand.

"What is fascinating about it is that it turned up where no torc should be -- to put it mildly, the Newark region is not known for major high-status Iron Age finds." The BBC reported that the necklace was the most expensive single piece of treasure found by a member of the public in over a decade.

Archaeologists say the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins was minted in the middle of the first century B.C. as the future Roman ruler Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area.

Curfs said he was walking with his detector this spring and was about to go home when he suddenly got a strong signal on his earphones and uncovered the first coin. "It was golden and had a little horse on it - I had no idea what I had found," he said.

After posting a photo of the coin on a Web forum, he was told it was a rare find. The following day he went back and found another coin. "It looked totally different - silver, and saucer-shaped," he said. Curfs notified the city of his find, and he and several other hobbyists helped in locating the rest of the coins, in cooperation with archaeologists.

Nico Roymans, the archaeologist who led the academic investigation of the find, believes the gold coins in the cache were minted by a tribe called the Eburones that Caesar claimed to have wiped out in 53 B.C. after they conspired with other groups in an attack that killed 6,000 Roman soldiers. The Eburones "put up strong resistance to Caesar's journeys of conquest," Roymans said.

The silver coins were made by tribes further to the north - possible evidence of cooperation against Caesar, he said. Both coin types have triple spirals on the front, a common Celtic symbol. The two other known caches of Eburones coins have been found in neighboring Belgium and Germany.

Maastricht city spokeswoman Carla Wetzels said the value of the coins is not known - their worth is primarily historical. The Belgian cache of similar size was estimated at around 175,000 euros ($220,000).

The farmer who owned the land agreed to sell his interest to the city for an undisclosed sum. Curfs, a teacher at a nearby junior college, continues to own the 11 coins he found, but has lent them to the City of Maastricht on a long-term basis. The coins will go on display at the Centre Ceramique museum in Maastricht this weekend.

Ten years ago, at a spot known locally as "Black Rock", two men diving for sea cucumbers came across a large pile of sand and coral. Digging a hole, they reached in and pulled out a barnacle-encrusted bowl. Then another. And another. They had stumbled on the oldest, most important, marine archaeological discovery ever made in South East Asia, an Arab dhow - or ship - built of teak, coconut wood and hibiscus fibre, packed with a treasure that Indiana Jones could only dream of.

There were 63,000 pieces of gold, silver and ceramics from the fabled Tang dynasty, which flourished between the seventh and 10th centuries. Among the artefacts was the largest Tang gold cup ever discovered and some of the finest Yue ware - a porcelain that the ancient Chinese likened to snow because of its delicacy.

The exceptional quality of the goods has led some scholars to suggest that these were gifts from the Tang Emperor himself. The bulk of the cargo was more homely, including 40,000 Changsha bowls, named after the Changsha kilns in Hunan Province, where they were produced. Found packed inside tall, earthenware jars, some experts believe bean sprouts were placed between the bowls as a sort of organic bubble-wrap. These brightly painted tea bowls were the Tang equivalent of plastic food containers.

"It looks like they were approaching Tanjung Pandang, the main town on Belitung Island, when they hit the reef," explains Walterfang, the stocky German treasure hunter who salvaged the wreck. The Belitung wreck is a time capsule that has revolutionised our understanding of two ancient civilisations that fill the airwaves today, China and the Middle East

"They may have come here for water or other supplies. Perhaps there was an emergency. Or even an attack by pirates. "But we cannot know. It was nearly 1,200 years ago." Magically, everything was perfectly preserved by a layer of silt. Raised from the seabed more than a millennium later, the gold cups and bronze mirrors, silver boxes and ewers look as fresh as the day they were created.

In 2005, the Singapore government paid more than £20m to acquire the treasure as the centrepiece for a new maritime museum. But it is not just about bling. The Belitung wreck is a time capsule that has revolutionised our understanding of two ancient civilisations that fill the airwaves today - China and the Middle East.

The serial nature of the cargo - 1,000 miniature funeral urns and 800 identical inkpots - shows that China was mass-producing goods for export several centuries earlier than previously thought. The Arab dhow, the first of its kind ever found, proves something equally startling - that mariners from the Persian Gulf were trading on a scale, and over distances, unmatched by human beings until Vasco da Gama set sail for India at the end of the 15th Century. Sinbad the Sailor was for real.

One of the Changsha bowls bore a date stamp, "the 16th Day of the seventh Month of the second Year of the Baoli reign", or AD 826. Carbon-14 analysis of some star anise found in the wreck confirmed this as the probable date of the dhow's departure from China.

Most scholars believe it set sail from Canton, or Guangzhou, as it is today, the largest of the five ports servicing the Maritime Silk Route. No-one knows exactly where the dhow was heading when it struck the coral reef. Its most likely destination was a place familiar to us for other reasons, the Iraqi port of Samara, or Basra as it is called today. In the 9th Century, Basra was one of the wealthiest cities in the world, with a prosperous merchant class hungry for Chinese luxury goods.

Among the most sensational artefacts found in the wreck are three dishes decorated with cobalt from Iran which represent the oldest blue and white ware ever found, setting back by several hundred years the invention of what would become known all over the world simply as "china."

Mr Stevens, a businessman from Hinckley, has been metal detecting for 30 years, and this find in his home county of Leicestershire is his most valuable yet. After discovering it he contacted antiquities specialist Brett Hammond from Time Line Originals. Hammond said: "I arranged for him to take it to the finds liaison officer in his area under the portable antiquities scheme. It was clearly an important item of treasure. It is a gold ring possibly containing a rare black diamond. It is a beautiful early medieval inscribed finger ring that would have been owned by a very wealthy person, in the Church or possible even royalty. Common people in that era were not even allowed to own gold, so it must have been owned by a powerful person. The ring has gone to the coroner pending an inquest and if tests show what we think it is a museum will almost certainly be interesting in acquiring it."

Stevens said he was with friends in a ploughed field when he came across the ring about five inches down. He said: "We have a really good relationship with the local farmer who more or less gives us a free reign on any fields that have no crops growing. We had noticed a few days earlier that he was busy ploughing up the field in question, so it at once became our target for the day. I stuck at it for a couple of hours and had only a few interesting artefacts for my efforts. Then I found an Edward halfpenny and hope returned only to fade again as the day yielded rather less than we had hoped for. Some of my friends had switched off their detectors and were walking back to their cars.I was about to join them when I got a really good signal. The others grouped round me as I dropped to my knees and dug to a depth of about five inches, then pulled out a clod of damp soil. From the side of it I could see gold. One of my friends thought it was a bottle top but as my fingers closed on it I knew it had never wrapped around the top of a bottle. It is boldly inscribed with lettering that certainly looks very early medieval to my untrained eye. I don't know yet what the letters spell out, but if they indicate a royal owner it might be worth tens of thousand of pounds."

A treasure hunter found an Anglo-Saxon cross in a field in Nottinghamshire. It is made with gold probably melted down from Merovingian French coins. Two of the red cabochon gemstones are missing as is the relic that would have been kept in its centre. The red stones are among the world's most ancient gems and were used by ancient Greeks who called them granatum, the same word they used for pomegranate seeds.

The anonymous finder discovered the 1,400-year-old cross just 12 inches beneath the sod on a farm in Nottinghamshire. He had already unearthed a Saxon penny and beaten copper plate before probing deeper. "Instinctively I put down the digger and scraped gently at the soil with my gloved hand," he said. "Then I made contact with a piece of metal that made me want to remove my glove. It seemed warm, almost alive, to my touch. My fingers closed on it and when I opened them I was gazing down, literally with my jaw dropped in astonishment, at the most wonderful find I've ever recovered."

He handed the find to a coroner who declared it as treasure trove at an inquest. This means the finder will get half the proceeds of a sale. He is likely to split his earnings with the farmer. The specific location of the find is being kept secret for fear that so-called 'nighthawks' will descend on it in case there is anything else to be found.

"Oh, my God," diver Michael DeMar said, describing his discovery of the chalice on the site where the Spanish galleon Santa Margarita is believed to have gone down during a vicious storm.

Dented on a few sides and encrusted with marine growth, the chalice weighs more than a pound is etched with scrollwork and boasts decorative handles.

The wreck was from a Spanish fleet that sank during a Sept. 6, 1622, hurricane. Over the past quarter century, it has yielded the biggest treasure find in U.S. history.

The late Key West treasure hunter Mel Fisher began the search for artifacts from the Santa Margarita, which sank in 1622, more than a quarter-century ago.

The chalice is slated to arrive at a Key West laboratory Wednesday morning. Experts hope cleaning it will reveal more details of a crest etched inside the bottom of the piece. Salvors estimated the value of the chalice at at one million dollars or more.

The divers, who are searching the shipwreck trail of the Spanish galleon Santa Margarita that sank in a 1622 hurricane, also recovered ceramic pieces, spikes, ships' fittings, rigging elements and two skeleton keys. "We were on the trail on the Margarita site following the artifact scatter pattern to the north," said Blue Water head archaeologist Dr. R. Duncan Mathewson. "This is the furthest point on that trail where gold has ever been found before, so it confirms that we're on the right trail."

The search for Santa Margarita artifacts began more than a quarter-century ago by the late Key West treasure hunter Mel Fisher. Today, the Blue Water team is leading that search under a joint-venture partnership with the Fisher family owned company, Motivation Inc.

Almost a year ago, Blue Water divers located gold bars, gold chains and a lead box containing thousands of pearls that were carried by the Margarita. The value of that find was estimated at more than $2 million.

The Chilean National Monuments Council insists the ship and its treasures are state property under terms spelled out in Chile’s national monuments law N. 17.2888. Even so, the Council has agreed to grant the company 25 percent of the loot. "Because the ship was embedded in the sand rather than deep under the ocean 'Our Lady of the Good Council and San Leopoldo' is property of the private business that found it," the Republic's Comptroller's Office told the Santiago Times.

Most archaeologists expected to find the remains of the ship deep on the ocean floor. But fragments of the 41-meter x 11-meter ship have been discovered embedded in the sand under fairly shallow waters near where the Huenchullami River flows into the ocean. The once ornate vessel was built by the French in the mid 1700s and, loaded with 56 canons, was used by their military until the ship fell into Spanish hands. The Spaniards revamped the ship into a merchant vessel and set it sailing to "New Spain."

After several trips to the new world, the ship sank after five months at sea when it was nearing the end of a journey from Puerto de Cadiz, Spain, to El Callao, Peru. The ship was carrying precious glassware from the Spanish royal family to be sold to Peru’s Spanish royalty. The glassware, along with garments decorated with gold, gold money, fancy furniture and over 50 canons, today have an estimated value of US$30 million.

The company Web site gives a graphic explanation of how the ship went down: the crew was so malnourished and sick that they could not even raise all of the ship’s sails. They were caught in a terrible storm and could not be rescued, condemning the galleon and its crew to Davy Jones’ locker. Twelve bodies and pieces of the ship washed ashore the day after the storm, but no treasure.

Oriflama S.A. was formed in 2001, bringing together a scientific team from Cuba with the sponsorship of several Chilean universities. Later, several local museums joined the effort. The goal was to find the galleon and recover the treasure. "Despite frequent contact with the company, until today no one had asked or been given permission to start excavation work on the ship," said Oscar Acuna, the executive secretary of Chile’s National Monuments Society, in a press release. "Since the property is protected under the law, it is the state’s property. The state is willing to grant the company 25 percent of the treasure for its work, but the rest will be state property."

But before the actual worth of the ship’s treasure can be determined, the ship’s remains must be recovered from under the sand. So far, the project has cost the company US$1 million, and another US$15 million in expenses may yet be incurred before the project is completed.

"We are hoping that the National Historical Council will invest in our project so we may complete it," Oriflama CEO Hernan Couyoudijan told the Santiago Times. "It will cost an estimated US$15 million. The National Historical Council does not have rights to the ship and it seems it would be in their best interest to work together with us on the project. We want to make a museum out of it. This would not only preserve some of history, but potentially boost tourism in Curepto." Cuepto’s city government met last week to decide if they will side with the company or with the National Historical Council in the dispute. No decision had been announced by press time.

The Oriflama S.A’s scientific team found the ship through the use of magnetomentry, a methodology using a machine that detects materials with magnetic properties, like iron. The company continues excavation work, but needs more sponsorships to complete the project.

"Some of these are in uncirculated or mint condition," Bowers said, predicting the best could bring $50,000 to $100,000 each at auction. Of particular interest to coin experts - numismatists - are gold pieces known as quarter eagles and half eagles, which carried face values of $2.50 and $5, respectively, in the days before the United States printed paper currency.

Those coins were struck at mints in New Orleans; Charlotte, N.C.; and Dahlonega, Ga. The Charlotte and Dahlonega mints operated from 1838, when the first significant U.S. gold deposits were found in those areas, until the start of the Civil War in 1861, said Douglas Mudd, curator of the American Numismatic Association's Money Museum in Denver. Neither mint ever reopened.

The Dahlonega mint produced 1.38 million gold coins, while another 1.2 million were minted in Charlotte. That was only of the fraction of the tens of millions of gold coins minted in the United States before the federal government confiscated gold coins held by individuals, banks and the U.S. Treasury in 1933 and melted them into gold bars as the country abandoned the gold standard.

The treasure also includes $10 gold pieces, known as eagles, that were minted in Philadelphia and New Orleans, Mudd said. "Relatively speaking, they are rare," Mudd said of the Charlotte- and Dahlonega-minted coins. "The mints were set up to take advantage of the resources there."

The New York was a 165-foot sidewheel steamer built in its namesake city in 1837. By 1846, it was making regular commercial runs between Galveston, Texas and New Orleans. A storm took the ship to the bottom, killing 17 of the 53 people aboard. The other 36 were rescued.

A group of four hobbyists, who enjoyed looking for sunken vessels in the Gulf, discovered what was left of the SS New York around 1990. After several trips in the ensuing years and bringing up a handful of coins at a time from the mud that virtually covered the ship, the four invested in a full-scale salvage operation in 2007.

"What we've found is varied, a little of everything," said one of the four, Craig DeRouen, who is on a leave from his normal job as a mechanical engineer in the oil industry. "There are different denominations from different years, silver and gold."

DeRouen, along with fellow New Iberia residents Avery Munson and Gary and Renee Hebert, have ownership of the coins after obtaining title to the wreck from a federal court. Mudd said that although the coins are worth much more now because of current gold prices around $900 an ounce, that's only a fraction of their value. "The collector value may be three, five, eight thousand dollars more, depending upon their condition," Mudd said. "It depends upon the individual piece and its individual rarity."

John Albanese, a rare coin dealer in Far Hills, N.J. since 1978, appraised about 200 of the gold coins. "This is the most impressive Southern-minted gold I've seen in my lifetime," he said. Mudd said $100,000 for one coin likely would involve an exceptional piece, but a range of $8,000 to $16,000 wouldn't be unusual for a coin in high-grade condition. "Historically, they are interesting. These are the first coins produced by gold from the United States," he said. "The California gold rush didn't occur until about 1850."

Gold resists saltwater corrosion, and mud that had collected on the coins was removed with a chemical compound that does not affect the metal, Bowers said. Meanwhile, the silver coins are etched by the sea water, giving them a "shipwreck effect" that is popular with collectors, Bowers said.

This will be the first hunt of the year for the Fisher organization, which runs Mel Fisher's Treasures museum in Sebastian. Fisher Abt said the site about two miles south of the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant is the southern most tip of the fleet's wreckage field. "I think it's one of the 1715 fleet," she said. "We have some evidence of the early record of 1715 fleet material being found in that area." But there may also be wrecks in the vicinity from the 1600s and the 1800s.

Pope, the president of his company Amelia Research and Recovery, dug off shore at Stuart's Tiger Shores Beach last year with another treasure hunter who believes the 1715 wreckage reaches further south. David Jordan plans to return this year, working again with Pope, with hopes of finding a wreck by the cannons he thought he saw 29 years ago while surfing just north of Stuart Beach.

Fisher Abt, meanwhile, said her crews typically find some shards of pottery and musket balls, cannons and anchors, at any given shipwreck. And, "hopefully, some gold coins, gold chains gold jewelry," she said. "You never know."

Already, there has been promise of the Treasure Coast. "Our very first hole we dug . . .," Pope said, "we picked up a piece of copper sheeting from a ship." Copper was typically used for dinnerware and cooking pots, but was also used on the ship itself. The new find was only 3 inches by 6 inches and had not been positively identified. "We live everyday with anticipation of finding lots of treasure," Pope said. "Who knows? The next hole could be the big one."

"If the experts assessments are correct, the shipwreck could date back to the late 1400s or early 1500s, making it a discovery of global significance," Namdeb Diamond Corp., a joint venture between De Beers and the Namibian government, said in an e-mailed statement from the capital, Windhoek, today.

The site yielded a wealth of objects, including several tons of copper, more than 50 elephant tusks, pewter tableware, navigational instruments, weapons and the gold coins, which were minted in the late 1400s and early 1500s, according to the statement. The Namibian government will claim ownership of the treasure found, Halifa Mbako, group corporate affairs manager at Namdeb, said in a telephone interview from Windhoek today.

"By Namibian law, discoveries of this nature belong to the state," he said. "The discovery was found in our mining area, but the treasure belongs to the state." The Namibian government is in consultations with the governments of Spain and Portugal to try and identify the ship, which was most likely a trading vessel, given the goods on board, said.

On April 1, Bob Burrell, the head of Namdeb's Mineral Resource Department, found some rounded copper ingots and the remains of three bronze cannons in the sand. "All mining operations were halted, the site secured and Dr. Dieter Noli, an archaeologist and expert in the Sperrgebiet, was brought into the project and identified the cannons as Spanish breach-loaders of a type popular in the early 1500s," Namdeb said.

The find may be the oldest sub-Saharan shipwreck ever discovered, Namdeb said. "If this proves to be a contemporary of the ships sailed by the likes of Diaz, Da Gama and Columbus, it would be of immense national and international interest and Namibia's most important archaeological find of the century," according to the statement.

Diamonds have been mined along the south-western coast of Namibia and in its coastal waters for the last 100 years. De Beers, the world's largest diamond company, is 45 percent owned by Anglo American Plc, 40 percent held by the Oppenheimer family and 15 percent owned by the government of Botswana.

"We went out on the field looking for cannonballs," Alexander Granhof told the online edition of the Sydsvenskan newspaper. "I found a piece of metal and thought at first it was shrapnel from a shotgun. I shouted to grandfather and then we discovered more and more coins," he added.

In all, the pair found more than 4,600 coins on the field. Archaeologists, using metal detectors, boosted the tally to 7,000 but did not rule out that even more coins were hidden in the soil. "This is incredible," Bernd Gerlach of the Lund University Historical Museum told reporters.

Both Alexander and his grandfather Jens Granhof are interested in archaeology and went treasure hunting after reading about a treasure buried somewhere in the province of Scania. No reward sum has yet been determined but the silver in the treasure alone was estimated to be worth 1.5 million kronor (250,000 dollars).

During the 13th century when the coins were hidden, the sum could have fetched some 15 serfs, museum head Per Karsten said. The coins had been placed in two urns that were wrapped in cloth. The treasure was likely buried during troubled times, and one theory was that the coins were church taxes collected from nearby farms. The find included thousands of English coins with a high silver content and some other markers that likely were used locally.

They believe it to be either gold or silver, based on the scan with a sophisticated metal detector. A drilling company began boring pilot holes at one-yard intervals trying to find the entrance of the cavern, about 100 yards from the Czech border in the eastern German state of Saxony. Once it is found, the searchers are to snake a camera down into the enclosure to determine exactly what they have found.

"It can't be iron," Haustein said as work progressed at the site. "The computer readout clearly indicates gold." By late afternoon, however, the most excitement for a crowd of onlookers from the tiny settlement was a short-lived geyser of water that shot up as one of the holes was drilled.

Haustein — an amateur treasure hunter who is also a member of Germany's parliament for the opposition Free Democratic Party — said the process could take several days. Haustein has been working with Christian Hanisch, who found the notebook in the belongings of his father, a former Luftwaffe radio operator who died last year.

Haustein said last week that he was convinced they had found the storied Amber Room treasure but later acknowledged that, while there could be "cultural treasures" in the cavern, such as paintings or amber paneling, they are not things that show up with a metal detector.

The Amber Room — named for magnificent wall panels of golden-brown amber — was stolen by the Nazis from a palace outside St. Petersburg during World War II and has never been recovered in its entirety. The ornate Amber Room, made from amber panels decorated with gold leaf, was originally a gift from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. During the Second World War it was dismantled by the Nazis and later disappeared, and since then archaeologists have searched for the room in over 100 places.

Experts have been skeptical of Haustein's claim, pointing out that stories of the Amber Room surface regularly, only to be proved wrong, and that the Amber Room had no significant amounts of gold or silver in it.

The story begins in 1989 in the area around Caborca, near the Gran Desierto de Altar in the Mexican state of Sonora. The nearest surface water is the Sea of Cortez; some 60 miles to the west. Arizona is 70 miles to the north. Ranching is the chief occupation, but there are a number of mines in the area along with placer gold deposits in some of the canyons. It is within these dry canyons that a local Mexican man began his quest to find hidden treasure in the form of placer nuggets. Some finds of nuggets had been made in the past, and fired with optimistic enthusiasm; our gold-seeker grew determined to find his share. At this point, our latter-day prospector did something very much at odds with tradition: visiting a Radio Shack store - he purchased a metal detector. Practicing on buried coins and other metal objects, he learned how to operate it, and then he set out for an area that was reported to have produced nuggets. Once there, he started to walk; slowly and carefully across the desert, all the while following a grid pattern that would ensure that no areas would be unchecked. Hundreds of boring hours slowly ebbed away with an occasional 'beep' from his ear-phones to signal a potential find. Most were due to scrap iron or old lead bullets. Then one day; the 'beep' sounded a little different. Digging down; he caught that first gleam from his own personal El Dorado. Hardly believing his eyes he kept digging, the gleaming surface kept going - and going. By the time he had completely uncovered this incredible nugget, it was obvious that it was huge. Just hauling it back to his home was a chore since it weighed over twelve kilograms. There; a gentle washing removed the last traces of dust left on the surface from its subterranean resting place. Now the enormity of his find engulfed him: What to do with this massive nugget, shaped like the boot of a conquistador of old? Who could help him with advice regarding the ways of selling such a thing? Ah, but of course - the Patron. He would know. And he did.

Since that fateful day in the Desierto, the "Boot of Cortez" has passed through a number of hands and has been marveled at by hundreds of thousands of museum-goers. It was one of the star exhibits at the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show in 2004, the theme of which was simply: "Gold". Based on its enthusiastic response by the public, the owner of the "Boot" was solicited to place it on loan for the traveling "Gold" exhibition assembled by the Houston Museum of Natural Science where it was exhibited in 2005, along with other notable specimens from: the Smithsonian, Harvard and other major collections. The exhibition then moved to the American Museum of Natural History in 2006 where it opened to rave reviews by collectors and casual visitors alike. After almost a year in New York City, the exhibition recently closed in August 2007.

Its pristine condition and unique shape have earned it the sobriquet "the most unusual and attractive large nugget in the World" and at 389.4 ounces Troy (32.4 Troy pounds) it is the largest surviving placer nugget from the Western Hemisphere. The 2nd largest nugget is Alaskan and is almost 100 ounces smaller. It has a bright, rich golden-yellow color which indicates a high purity (approximately 94% + pure). There have been larger masses of gold but these have consisted primarily of intermixtures of gold and worthless rock. The "Boot of Cortez" measures a stunning 10 3/4 inches in height and 7 1/4 inches in width.

"It's the biggest ship of its kind to be found," said professor Liu Wensuo, and archaeologist from Sun Yat-sen University. "It lay in about 25m (82ft) of water and was covered in mud - perfect conditions for preservation. Both the ship and its contents are in exceptionally good condition."

The salvage team began building a massive steel cage around the 30m (98ft)-long vessel in May in order to raise it and the surrounding silt. The cage was made up of 36 steel beams, each weighing around 5 tons. Together with its contents, the cage weighed more than 3,000 tons. The heavy lifting began a day earlier than expected at 0900 on Friday due to favourable weather conditions. It was completed two hours later and placed on a waiting barge.

As many as 6,000 artefacts have already been retrieved from the 13th Century vessel, mostly bluish white porcelain, as well as personal items from crew members, including gold belt buckles and silver rings. A further 70,000 artefacts are believed to be still on board, many still in their original packing cases.

In the mid-1980s a number of ships, containing enormous hoards of Chinese porcelain, gold and silver, were found by foreign treasure hunters. This really is only the beginning, there are so many shipwrecks in this area... sometimes they even wash ashore Their valuable cargoes were sold at auction houses in the West. At the time, China was too poor to bid for the artefacts. The loss of such an important part of its history spurred the government into action.

Nanhai 1 will be the first major project to be undertaken by Chinese underwater archaeologists. Professor Liu is confident that the salvage will be a success. "This really is only the beginning, there are so many shipwrecks in this area, fishermen often snag artefacts in their nets, sometimes they even wash ashore," he said.

It will also give historians much-needed information on a time when China was trading with the world. During the Song dynasty, most of the country's trade was with India and the Middle East. Later that trade would shift westwards. "People often think of ancient China as being a closed society, but in the Tang and Song dynasties, China traded with the world - much like today," Professor Liu added.

The Nanhai 1 will eventually be moved to a new purpose built museum near Yangjiang in Guangdong province. The dramatic building - still far from completion - is being built on the beach. The ship will be stored underwater in a massive tank, in which the water temperature, pressure and other conditions will be identical to where it lay on the seabed, allowing visitors to watch as archaeologists uncover its secrets. China has invested about $40m in this project, in the hope of reclaiming a part of the country's history, and this time ensuring it stays in Chinese hands.

The 545 coins, each worth thousands of euros to collectors but priceless to historians and archaeologists, could overturn much of the received wisdom about the complexity, and wealth, of pre-Roman Celtic society in France. Why was such enormous wealth, a king's ransom at the time, buried in the grounds of a large Gaulish farm 40 miles south of Saint-Brieuc in the first century BC? Why was the hoard never recovered?

"Treasure on this scale would only have been used for transactions between aristocratic families," said Yves Menez, an archaeologist specialising in iron-age Brittany. It has always been assumed that the Celtic nobility lived in fortified towns, not in the wild and dangerous countryside. "The reality must have been more complex," Mr Menez said. Like all Gaulish coins, the 58 "stateres" and 487 quarter "stateres" found near to the village of Laniscat are copies of early Greek money.

Gauls served as mercenaries in the armies of Alexander the Great. The money that they brought home served as the model for home-minted coins. Some of the new treasure trove, rescued from the site of a proposed dual-carriageway, have the familiar Celtic monetary pattern of a horse on one side and a man's head on the reverse. Other coins have hitherto unknown designs, such as horses with human heads.

There are also images of riders and wild boars. Smaller caches of Gaulish coins have turned up in the past but rarely of such quality and never in such numbers. Most transactions for goods in Gaulish times were conducted through barter. Coins were for the super-rich. "This is an exceptional discovery," said Mr Menez. "It represents a colossal fortune for the period. Each of these coins was like a 500 euro note today."

The hoard of coins was discovered by the French government agency, the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives (INRAP), which has the right to explore any potentially significant site before a road or new building covers it forever. The coins are believed to have been minted in around 75 to 5BC. They were probably buried just before, or during, the first Roman invasions of what is now northern and western France.

A dig led by INRAP archaeologist Eddie Roy discovered the coins scattered over 200 square metres of a site soon to be occupied by a new by-pass. It is believed that they were all buried together but disturbed over the centuries by agricultural ploughing. "We found a single coin about 30cms down and then we started a systematic search," Mr Roy said. "We found 50 more in a single day and then, with the help of metal detectors, we located all the others."

The dig unearthed the remains of a large manor house or farm, which is thought to have belonged to the "Osisme" people – a Celtic tribe living in the far west of the Breton peninsula. The coins were probably buried in the farm's boundary embankment. Why? To hide the wealth from the Romans? Possibly. The farm was occupied for several centuries after the treasure was buried but the coins were never recovered: one small part of Gaul which resisted the Roman invasion.

Known as an Angel Coin because of the depiction of an angel on one side of it, experts say the coin would have belonged to someone of great wealth and social standing, possibly a merchant trader, in medieval times.

Thought to have been minted in the 1500s, the rare discovery has excited historians and archaeologists in the region who have been desperate to catch a glimpse of the coin first-hand. However, few have clapped eyes on the artifact which is due to be auctioned off in London in the coming weeks.

It is expected to fetch thousands, but there has been widespread disappointment that the unknown seller has decided not to report the coin to the finds liaison officer at the Museum of Antiquities for the North East. Rob Collins, finds liaison officer at Newcastle University's Museum of Antiquities, said the discovery was very exciting, not only for Northumberland but the region as a whole.

He told the News Post Leader: "Gold coins don't turn up very often, they are fairly rare finds. "They are normally found in very good condition as gold doesn't corrode so they appear quite lusty in that sense. "Gold coins like this represent a considerable amount of wealth to the person at the time, so in that way, it's very rare for gold coins to be lost or dropped. "This particular coin would have belonged to someone like a merchant or possibly some type of nobility."

Although Mr Collins has only seen photographs of the coin, he says he would like to have seen it in the flesh in order to verify its identity. "It's important for me to see such artifacts and verify them. "It's disappointing not to be able to see the coin and speak to the finder as well," he said.

Local historian, John Dawson, of Cambois, said the coin was discovered somewhere near the Choppington Pit, between Choppington and Guide Post and claims it could be worth up to £20,000. He said: "One coin is a find but if another was to be found in the same area then it becomes a treasure trove. "The coin would have been made sometime between 1505 and 1529 and it is thought that only another nine have been found in this country."

Most of the coins are German, English and Arabic currency from the late 900s and early 1000s. But archaeologists are most excited about the presence of six very rare Swedish coins, from the reign of Olof Skötkonug, king of Sweden from 994-1022. One of the Swedish coins has never been found in Sweden before, although an example has been found in Poland. One of the other coins is only the second of its kind to have been found.

The find contains rare early Viking money and foreign currency from present-day England, Germany, Ireland, Iraq, and Uzbekistan. Along with a similar cache recently discovered in England, the new find paints a picture of Vikings trading and looting their way across Europe and beyond. The Anglo-Saxon coins were likely either plunder or protection money known as danegeld, which was paid by regional rulers to keep Vikings from attacking, experts said. The Asian coins are products of the Vikings' extensive trade, which the Norse conducted by sailing south along Russia's long rivers to reach the Middle East.

Archaeologist Dan Carlsson told Svenska Dagbladet that the coins were "very well preserved, and come from a period about which we know little in terms of coin history." Gotland is one of the richest sources anywhere of buried Viking treasure. Discoveries of coins and other treasure are made on a regular basis.

The artifacts are encased in a "concretion," essentially a chunk in which the cannons and other objects have been fused together due to the reaction between saltwater and iron over time. The concretion, which is about the size of a small car, is the largest ever recovered from the wreck and was too heavy to be lifted by crane, Clifford said by cell phone from his boat, the 75-foot Vast Explorer. Instead, a custom-built net was attached to the mass, which was lifted from the ocean floor by four flotation bags, Clifford said.

The concretion was discovered last summer in the same spot as a smaller mass of three cannons that was retrieved from the ocean floor last month, Clifford said. The newly found cannons, believed to be among the approximately 30 cannons that the Whydah had stolen from other ships and was storing in her hold, were found about 10 feet beneath the ocean floor at the spot where the first artifacts from the wreck were discovered in 1984.

The concretion will be tied to a pier in Provincetown tonight and left underwater until it can be transported to a laboratory in Brewster for examination later this week, Clifford said. "All we know is that there are some cannons and other artifacts sticking out of it, but until we get it in the lab and X-ray it, we won't know exactly what's in there," Clifford said. "It's pretty suspenseful."

The Whydah, laden with loot from at least 54 other ships and manned by a crew of about 140 pirates, sank in a northeaster off Wellfleet on April 26, 1717. Clifford has removed about 200,000 artifacts from the wreck since 1984, some 200 of which are on display in Cincinnati as part of a traveling museum exhibit.

The pair kept their find intact and it was transferred to the British Museum to be examined by experts, who said the discovery was "phenomenal". It was declared as a treasure at a court hearing in Harrogate on Thursday. North Yorkshire coroner Geoff Fell said: "Treasure cases are always interesting, but this is one of the most exciting cases that I have ever had to rule on. "I'm delighted that such an important Viking hoard has been discovered in North Yorkshire. We are extremely proud of our Viking heritage in this area."

Metal detectorists David and Andrew Whelan, who uncovered the treasures, said the find was a "thing of dreams". The pair, from Leeds, said the hoard was worth about £750,000 as a conservative estimate. They told the BBC News website: "We've been metal detecting for about five years; we do it on Saturdays as a hobby. "We ended up in this particular field, we got a really strong signal from the detector... Eventually we found this cup containing the coins and told the antiquity authority. "We were astonished when we finally discovered what it contained."

The ancient objects come from as far afield as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe. The hoard contains 617 silver coins and 65 other objects, including a gold arm-ring and a gilt silver vessel. Dr Jonathan Williams, keeper of prehistory in Europe at the British Museum, said: "[The cup] is beautifully decorated and was made in France or Germany at around AD900. "It is fantastically rare - there are only a handful of others known around the world. It will be stunning when it is fully conserved."

Most of the smaller objects were extremely well preserved as they had been hidden inside the vessel, which was protected by a lead container. The British Museum said the coins included several new or rare types, which provide valuable new information about the history of England in the early 10th Century, as well as Yorkshire's wider cultural contacts in the period.

It was probably buried for safety by a wealthy Viking leader during the unrest following the conquest of the Viking kingdom of Northumbria in AD927. A spokeswoman for the museum said: "The size and quality of the hoard is remarkable, making it the most important find of its type in Britain for over 150 years."

The find will now be valued for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport by the Independent Treasure Valuation Committee. Dr Williams said that the British Museum and the York Museums Trust would be looking to raise the funds to purchase the collection so it could eventually go on public display. The proceeds would be split between the finders and landowners.

A gold bar, eight gold chains including two that measure more than 4 feet long, 11 ornate gold pieces and hundreds of other artifacts were recovered earlier this week by divers from Blue Water Ventures of Key West. Among the most intriguing discoveries was an 8-inch-long closed lead box. A small gap in its seal allowed salvagers to glimpse contents thought to be pearls (several thousand).

Found in approximately 18 feet of water, about 40 miles west of Key West, the items are believed to come from the Spanish galleon Santa Margarita. The Margarita sank off the Florida Keys in a 1622 hurricane.

An initial cache of treasure and artifacts from the Santa Margarita was discovered in 1980 by the late shipwreck salvor Mel Fisher. Fisher is best known for his 1985 discovery of the treasure of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in the same hurricane that claimed the Margarita.

Dr. R. Duncan Mathewson III, partner and director of archaeology for Blue Water Ventures, said Blue Water's team has been searching for the remainder of the Margarita wrecksite for two years under a joint venture agreement with the Fisher group, now headed by Mel Fisher's son, Kim Fisher. The elder Fisher began a quest to find the 1622 galleons in 1970.

The latest finds, Mathewson said, occurred in an area known as the Quicksands. The artifacts and treasure will be taken to the Fisher group's Key West headquarters for cataloging and conservation. Experts plan to attempt opening the sealed metal box Friday afternoon after its initial conservation and examination. Mathewson estimates more than $100 million worth of artifacts and treasure from the Santa Margarita remains to be recovered.

Anxiously awaiting the decision is Jack Harbeston, managing director of the Cayman Islands-registered commercial salvage company Sea Search Armada, who has taken on seven Colombian administrations over two decades in a legal fight to claim half the sunken hulk's riches. "If I had known it was going to take this long, I wouldn't have gotten involved in the first place," said Harbeston, 75, who lives in Bellevue, Wash.

In 1982, Sea Search announced to the world it had found the San Jose's resting place 700 feet below the water's surface, a few miles from the historic Caribbean port of Cartagena. Under well-established maritime law, whoever locates a shipwreck gets the rights to recover it in a kind of finders-keepers arrangement meant to offset the huge costs of speculative exploration.

Harbeston claims he and a group of 100 U.S. investors - among them the late actor Michael Landon and convicted Nixon White House adviser John Ehrlichman - have invested more than $12 million since a deal was signed with Colombia in 1979 giving Sea Search exclusive rights to search for the San Jose and 50 percent of whatever they find. But all that changed in 1984, when then-Colombian President Belisario Betancur signed a decree reducing Sea Search's share from 50 percent to a 5 percent "finder's fee."

Current President Alvaro Uribe's office declined to discuss the impending court decision, which is expected by Wednesday. But over the years successive governments have argued that Colombia's maritime agency never had the authority to award exploration contracts to Sea Search because the wreck is part of the country's cultural patrimony. The government may also be motivated by dollar signs. Harbeston believes that if sold skillfully to collectors and museums, the San Jose's treasure could fetch as much $10 billion - more than a third of Colombia's foreign debt.

The real value is impossible to calculate because the ship's manifests have disappeared. But the San Jose is known to have been part of Spain's only royal convoy to try to bring colonial bullion home to King Philip V during the War of Spanish Succession with England from 1701-1714. "Without a doubt the San Jose is the Holy Grail of treasure shipwrecks," said Robert Cembrola, director of the Naval War College Museum in Newport, R.I.

In 1994, Colombia hired treasure hunter Tommy Thompson to verify Sea Search's coordinates. Thompson, an American who has since disappeared allegedly with millions in investors' loot from a previous deep-sea find, turned up nothing. Another oceanographer, Mike Costin, who worked on a commercial submarine brought in by Sea Search for one of the company's early, booze-filled expeditions, also has his doubts.

"We found something, but I don't think it was the San Jose," he said. An underwater video taken of the alleged wreck in 1982 shows what looks like a corral reef-covered woodpile. "But drink a glass of wine and it can look like almost anything," said Tony Dyakowski, a Canadian treasure hunter based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Dyakowski claims to have uncovered sea logs that put the San Jose miles closer to the mainland. Harbeston shrugs off his detractors, saying, "If everyone's so sure it's not down there, then why don't they let us finish what we've started?"

Wherever the hulk lies, marine archaeologists say advances in diving, sonar and metal-detection make it possible to find almost any underwater wreck today. The problem is fending off rivals for whom the glint of gold is too powerful to resist. "It's like when you light a lantern in the forest and you discover all these insects you didn't know were there before are now descending on you," said Peter Hess, a Delaware lawyer who represents salvage companies.

Besides Sea Search, rival salvage companies and the Colombian government, Spain has also actively defended its sovereign rights over sunken ships that flew its flag. Last week, Spain filed claims in a U.S. federal court seeking up to $500 million in colonial treasure a Florida firm estimates it found recently in a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean.

Archeologists also have voiced concern, pointing to a 2001 UNESCO convention - backed by Spain but not signed by Colombia or the United States - that outlaws commercial exploitation of sunken cultural heritage. "People forget the San Jose is an underwater grave of 600 men," said Carla Rahn Phillips, a University of Minnesota historian and author of the new book "The Treasure of the San Jose." "The wreck deserves to be treated with respect, and most salvors I know only pay lip service to its historical importance."

The Colombian court ruling will also affect other commercial salvage companies eager to dive for more than 1,000 galleons and merchant ships believed to have sunk along Colombia's corral reefs during more than three centuries of colonial rule. Almost none have been recovered due to the legal limbo in the San Jose case. Daniel de Narvaez, a scuba-diving businessman hoping to salvage a wreck near the Caribbean island of San Andres, said that given the long, tortuous battle, he expects the decision could go either way. "After such a laughable and tragic ordeal, nothing surprises me anymore," he said.

A chartered cargo jet recently landed in the United States to unload hundreds of plastic containers packed with the 500,000 coins, which are expected to fetch an average of $1,000 each from collectors and investors.

"For this colonial era, I think (the find) is unprecedented," said rare coin expert Nick Bruyer, who was contracted by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration to examine a batch of coins from the wreck. "I don't know of anything equal or comparable to it." Citing security concerns, the company declined to release any details about the ship or the wreck site.

Company co-founder Greg Stemm said a formal announcement will come later, but court records indicate the coins might have come from the wreck of a 17th century merchant ship found off southwestern England. Because the shipwreck was found in an area where many colonial-era vessels went down, the company is still uncertain about its nationality, size and age, Stemm said, although evidence points to a specific known shipwreck.

The site is beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country, he said. "Rather than a shout of glee, it's more being able to exhale for the first time in a long time," Stemm said of the haul, by far the biggest in Odyssey's 13-year history. He would not say if the loot was taken from the same wreck site near the English Channel that Odyssey recently petitioned a federal court for permission to salvage.

"In seeking exclusive rights to that site, an Odyssey attorney told a federal judge last fall that the company likely had found the remains of a 17th-century merchant vessel that sank with valuable cargo aboard, about 40 miles off the southwestern tip of England. A judge granted those rights Wednesday.

In keeping with the secretive nature of the project dubbed "Black Swan," Odyssey also is not discussing details of the coins, such as their type, denomination or country of origin. Bruyer said he observed a wide variety of coins that probably were never circulated. He said the currency was in much better condition than artifacts yielded by most shipwrecks of a similar age. The coins - mostly silver pieces - could fetch several hundred to several thousand dollars each, with some possibly commanding much more, he said.

Value is determined by rarity, condition and the story behind them. Other experts said the condition and value of the coins could vary so much that the price estimate was little more than an educated guess. "It's absolutely impossible to accurately determine the value without knowing the contents and the condition of the retrieved coins. It's like trying to appraise a house or a car over the phone," said Donn Pearlman, a rare coin expert and spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild. Experts said that controlled release of the coins into the market along with aggressive marketing should keep prices at a premium.

The richest-ever shipwreck haul was yielded by the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys in 1622. Treasure-hunting pioneer Mel Fisher found it in 1985, retrieving a reported $400 million in coins and other loot.

Odyssey likely will return to the same spot for more coins and artifacts. "We have treated this site with kid gloves and the archaeological work done by our team out there is unsurpassed," Odyssey CEO John Morris said. "We are thoroughly documenting and recording the site, which we believe will have immense historical significance."

The company salvaged more than 50,000 coins and other artifacts from the wreck of the SS Republic off Savannah, Ga., in 2003, making millions. But Odyssey posted losses in 2005 and 2006 while using its state-of-the-art ships and deep-water robotic equipment to hunt for the next mother lode. "The outside world now understands that what we do is a real business and is repeatable and not just a lucky one-shot deal," Stemm said.

In January, Odyssey won permission from the Spanish government to resume a suspended search for the wreck of the HMS Sussex, which was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for a war against France in 1694 when it sank in a storm off Gibraltar. Historians believe the 157-foot warship was carrying nine tons of gold coins to buy the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a potential ally in southeastern France. Odyssey believes those coins could also fetch more than $500 million. But under the terms of an agreement, Odyssey will have to share any finds with the British government. The company will get 80 percent of the first $45 million and about 50 percent of the proceeds thereafter.

Odyssey also is seeking exclusive rights to what is believed to be an Italian-registered passenger vessel that sank during World War I in the Mediterranean Sea east of Sardinia, and to another discovered in the Mediterranean about 100 miles west of Gibraltar.

Although the Spanish government had given its approval, authorities in the regional government of Andalucia had been blocking progress towards recovering the 10 tonnes of gold and silver believed to have gone down with the vessel. On Friday, however, they gave the go-ahead for the Odyssey Explorer to go after the wreck, El País newspaper reported yesterday.

The American ship, belonging to the Florida-based Odyssey Marine exploration company, has been scanning the sea bed off Gibraltar for almost a decade. The 400 square miles of Mediterranean sea bed have turned up what appear to be dozens of ancient and modern wrecks, including some believed to date back 2,000 years to Phoenician and Roman times. But one wreck in particular, lying some 2,500 ft (760 metres) down and with the cannons still clearly visible to robot cameras despatched by the company, is thought most likely to be the HMS Sussex. The 80-gun warship, supposedly laden with gold and silver, had been on a secret mission to ensure the support of the Duke of Savoy in the war of the League of Augsburg against Louis XIV of France.

Admiral Sir Francis Wheeler, with HMS Sussex as his flagship, had led a fleet of some 80 vessels to the mouth of the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. "Historical records suggest a million pounds sterling was destined for Savoy," Odyssey Marine says. "Other court records show that just as Wheeler's fleet was assembling to sail for the Mediterranean, a million pounds was being collected at the exchequer ... and that an order was sent to the exchequer to issue 'a million pounds in money for the use of the fleet'."

In mid-February 1694, after a stop-off in Gibraltar, the Sussex found itself caught in a terrible storm. Admiral Wheeler eventually agreed to cut down the main mast to increase its stability. But, according to the two Muslim sailors who were the only survivors from the crew, the mast smashed to pieces while the vessel drifted, took on water and, eventually, plunged to the bottom of the ocean. Some 560 Sussex crew members were among the 1,253 sailors to die that night. Admiral Wheeler's body, dressed in his night-shirt, was discovered later by Spanish fishermen.

The HMS Sussex has long been a treasure hunter's dream. Odyssey Marine, which recovered more than $75m (£38m) of gold and silver coins from the wreck of the SS Republic off Georgia in 2003, began its hunt for the Sussex in 1997. In what was hailed as a ground-breaking agreement between a government and a treasure-hunting company, the UK has signed a deal with Odyssey Marine Exploration to allow it to seek out the Sussex.

Under the terms of the deal, any treasure discovered will be divided between the government and the company. The Spanish government initially tried to block the search, but Spain now agrees that - if it can be proved that this is the Sussex - the cargo belongs to Britain.

The search begins four years after officials with the Amelia Island-based Amelia Research and Recovery team first surveyed the shallow waters off Hutchinson Island for a stack of cannons that a local surfer discovered almost 30 years ago.

"I'm excited and ready to go," said Dave Jordan, a former Palm City resident and surfer who kept his discovery a secret for 25 years until his wife triggered the memory. "I want to see what's there." So does Doug Pope, the president of Amelia Research and Recovery, who on Monday captained the four-story-high boat down the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Pierce. Pope and Jordan worked with the state to secure necessary permits to "dig and identify" the 42 targets they found during a 2005 survey about 200 yards from the beach.

Starting as early as today, professional divers will use metal detectors to rule out which of the targets are "modern junk" — bridge parts or other metal debris — picked up in the initial survey, Pope said. Then they'll use a 6-inch vacuum dredge to determine what the remaining targets are. If they uncover an artifact of potential historical significance, the treasure hunters must first receive a permit to "salvage" the material.

"When the treasure gods start smiling, then we'll say we found something," Pope said. "They don't smile that often." If Jordan's memory turns out to be accurate, Martin County historians say the shipwreck could be part of an 11-vessel Spanish fleet that wrecked in a hurricane in 1715.

So far, the ship from that fleet discovered farthest south was the Urca de Lima, found north of Fort Pierce's Pepper Beach Park, which now contains a state underwater archeological preserve around the wreck. Other ships from that fleet have been discovered in Indian River County.

While it is unlikely any gold will be uncovered in the search, officials with the Historical Society of Martin County are hoping historical treasures will be discovered and eventually displayed in the new Elliott Museum planned just yards from the possible shipwreck site.

Jordan, who has family in Martin County and is in the process of moving from North Carolina to Gainesville, said he will likely stay on the Polly-L for a few days as the work begins. The project is expected to take about a month. "It's important for me to find the cannons, but it's not about me," he said. "I'm excited Martin County is getting a chance. There's tons of history here. It's unbelievable."

Drawn by a Brazilian math teacher's Web site descriptions of miners scooping up thousands of dollars in gold, between 3,000 and 10,000 people have poured in since December, cutting down huge trees, diverting streams and digging ever-deeper wildcat mines, in an area that only months ago was pristine rain forest.

Hundreds of mud-covered men with picks and shovels hack at the earth, marking their tiny plots with tree branches and string. Others feed dirt into wooden troughs and the residue into pans. A lucky few will end up with tiny nuggets and flakes of gold to sell for $530 an ounce in the town of Apui, about 50 miles north. Even the cooks, cleaners and porters serving the new industry are making about six times the minimum wage.

It's reminiscent of Serra Pelada, a mountain that became a gargantuan hole in the jungle floor after a gold rush in the early 1980s, immortalized in Sebastiao Salgado's photos of what looked like a hellish human anthill. "This is even better than Serra Pelada. I've been mining all around the Amazon since 1978 and this is the best I've ever seen," said Joao Leandro de Azedo, 70, overlooking his stake from a hammock. Azedo said he has panned some 70 ounces of gold worth a total of $19,000 since arriving 17 days ago, including 17 ounces in a single day. Half the proceeds went to the man who staked out his plot, and 8 percent more to Jose Ferreira da Silva Filho, who claims to own the entire "garimpo," or wildcat mine.

Already, too many people are chasing too little gold and there isn't enough space for all the miners at the eight main digging sites. Price-gouging (chain saws costing around $400 in gold) is rampant and malaria is spreading in the makeshift city, nicknamed Eldorado do Juma after the Amazon's mythical Eldorado, or city of gold. It already has bars, restaurants, barbershops, bakeries, equipment shops and jewelry stores, most of them constructed out of tree branches and tarps. A 16-room brothel is under construction.

Federal police armed with automatic weapons arrived last month, imposing a nightly curfew and cracking down on shootings but making it harder to get rich quick. "Luckily, we caught it right at the beginning. It is a concern for everyone that this doesn't become another Serra Pelada," said Walter Arcoverde of the National Department of Mineral Production.

Local people had been mining this area of the jungle state of Amazonas in relative peace until Ivani Valentin da Silva, a math teacher in Apui, posted their pictures and stories on the Internet, said Antonio Roque Longo, the mayor of Apui. "Perhaps he didn't have any idea of the impact it would have," said Longo. "People see this on the Internet and they think they're going to do the same thing. But the truth is, for every one person who strikes it rich there are 30 who go home penniless."

Da Silva said he clearly wrote that the gold would soon run out. "Unfortunately, no one read the article," he said, denying any responsibility for the environmental damage being done by the thousands of fortune-seekers. His Internet posting forced federal police to pay attention, he said, and without that, "the area would be totally devastated."

Government geologists are trying to measure the deposits, while environmental regulators struggle to prevent miners from using heavy equipment or mercury, which joins gold particles together but can ruin the rivers. The fear is that like Serra Pelada, Eldorado do Juma will end up a scarred wasteland.

Already, small rivers of mud gush from streambeds at night, suggesting that heavy-duty water jets are being used illegally, despite promises to wait for permits. "Most of the gold that can be mined manually has already been found, but if they start using heavy machinery this place is going to explode all over again," said Luiz Gonzaga da Conceicao, 51, a miner from Brazil's far west.

The land reform agency says the land actually belongs to the federal government, but now that the miners are here, there's talk of compromise _ authorities say they will permit pressure hoses, rock crushers and other machinery if miners police themselves and stick to an environmental protection plan. But da Silva, the man who claims to own the whole area, says he's working on exactly that. "This place has a great future. There are other minerals here besides gold. We have to get organized to exploit it," he said.

The authority plans to display the find along with an exhibition on its history in Newark in about 12 months. Sarah Midgley, the council's head of leisure and cultural services, said the authority felt compelled to buy the torc to preserve the area's heritage and prevent it from going overseas.

"The torc is one of the most significant pieces of Celtic artwork found in northern Europe and it proves that there was a significant community in the Newark area," she said. It is thought the relic, which would have been worn as a civic ornament, was buried as part of a religious offering.

An inquest declared the artefact to be "treasure" in May 2005. That meant Mr Richardson and Trinity College, Cambridge, who own the land where the torc was found, will share the £350,000. The authority is now looking at potential sites in the town to display the find, which is currently being looked after by the British Museum.

Sonja Marzinzik, curator of prehistory and Europe at the museum, described it as "an outstanding find of very high-quality workmanship." She said that it was a stunning example of early English heritage that reflected the skill of the makers and the importance of Anglo-Saxon England in the wider, early medieval world.

The discovery raises questions about the mobility of people and goods in the early Middle Ages. The gold is studded with large garnets, which would have come from Asia. Dr Marzinzik said: "The large garnet settings are extraordinary, as substantial garnets of this kind are scarce, particularly in the 7th century when supplies from the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka dried up. Their analysis can shed light on the economic background of gemstone provenance and trading networks. Suddenly we’re part of a much bigger picture. Before, we were not in the picture."

The finder, who wishes to remain anonymous, reported his discovery to Kevin Leahy, principal keeper of archaeology at Scunthorpe Museum, who is also finds adviser for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which records archaeological objects found by the public.

Dr Leahy said: "He had got a signal and found the first fittings from the gold sword hilt. He realised its importance and brought an excavating machine to take off the turf and pick up the rest. They were about 15 inches down. He brought them to me to declare them as possible treasure.

"He came in with a box, with the objects wrapped up in kitchen-roll paper. He went through each one, as if pulling large rabbits out of a hat. These were clearly very important 7th-century sword fittings with filigree gold, a really top-quality object."

The only other object to emerge from the site was a 1920s lightbulb. Dr Leahy said: "That confirmed my feeling that the sword was originally in the river. There is a history in Lincolnshire of finding weapons in rivers, starting in the Bronze Age. One can only guess why, but there were a lot of early medieval battles and fights on river crossings. This could have been dropped."

The sword’s quality suggests that it was commissioned by someone of high rank. Society was stratified at that time and the owner might have been a member of an important family or a noted warrior. The blade has not survived, although traces of iron are preserved on some of the gold fittings, which include the pommel, the upper hilt guard, the upper hilt collar, the lower hilt collar and the lower hilt guard.

After the find was valued by an independent treasure valuation committee at £125,000, the British Museum had to raise the money. The purchase was made possible with a £70,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The rest came from the British Museum Friends and museum funds.

Experts from Oxford Archaeology North were brought in and with the help of English Heritage began further excavations. Below the broaches they found the grave of a Viking woman. The two copper alloy broaches that started the whole thing. Courtesy Portable Antiquities Scheme. Then, 10 metres away, they found more burials, full of grave goods. Altogether, Peter’s "find of a lifetime" led to the discovery of two female and four male burials.

"This was a haunting find," explained Faye Simpson. "When I first saw the excavated graves, complete with artefacts but the bodies of those buried long decomposed, it seemed as though the people buried there had indeed followed in the footsteps of their ancestors and gone to Valhalla – the Viking afterlife."

The sandy soil of the area means that while the bodies have decomposed, the goods they were buried with remained exactly where it was interred over a thousand years ago. Archaeologists were therefore given the unique opportunity to excavate a Viking Age cemetery under 21st century conditions.

In the male burials they found weaponry and fire-making materials in two of them, while one was buried with spurs, a possible bridle and what is thought to be the remains of a drinking horn. One of the females was buried wearing a magnificent jet bracelet on her left wrist and with a copper alloy belt fitting. The other had been buried with a wooden chest at her feet, which x-rays may determine holds weaving equipment.

"We could not have expected more from the excavation of the site," said Rachel Newman of Oxford Archaeology North. "We knew the broaches found by Mr. Adams came from a burial of a Viking Age woman, which was exciting and of great importance in itself, but we did not expect to find five other graves complete with such a splendid array of artefacts. It truly has been an amazing few months excavating this extremely important Viking Age site."

The site is made even more remarkable by its rarity. Only one other Viking cemetery has been found and excavated in England to date - a cremation cemetery at Ingleby in Derbyshire, which was excavated in the 1940s. Ashes were found buried in earthenware pots and very few artefacts survive. The only other group of bodies to be found buried together was a battlefield cemetery at Repton, Derbyshire.

According to Sir Neil Cossons, Chairman of English Heritage, it is the fact that the burials are of a domestic type that makes them so important: "This incredible find provides rare archaeological evidence of the Vikings as settlers who integrated themselves into English life," he said. It reveals, he added, "the presence of the Vikings as a community group including women and challenges the war-lords stereotype as depicted by Hollywood."