The Staffordshire Hoard is a truly magical find

Oct 3 2009

The Staffordshire Hoard will have experts debating for many years.

Head of Horticultural Antiquities and Treasure for the British Museum Roger Bland described the find as ‘magical’ last week.

Speaking in Cannock Coroner’s Court, where the find was officially declared as treasure, Mr Bland said experts had ‘dropped everything’ to work on the hoard - but they regarded it as ‘a privilege’.

He said the find was ‘bigger than any other by quite a large margin’. “This is totally unprecedented,” he said.

Mr Bland said experts now have ‘a great deal of work to do’. He pointed out there were no objects found which would be associated with women.

“We have only just started studying and trying to understand. This must have been a deliberate burial,” he said.

He said one theory is that they could have been buried, with the owner intending to come back and retrieve them, but never could.

“Wealth of this kind must have belonged to a king,” he added.

“It’s going to be hard to try and uncover the story behind them. But it will give us new understanding of England in this period.”