Dark Ages Treasure Hoard Found

[Malthus]

Woah.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm

http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/artefacts/

To my mind, very cool.

[Ed Anger]

They'll just spend it on booze.

[Berkut]

That is some cool shit right there.

I've been looking for buried metal hordes around Rochester, but apparently the local Irondequoit sucked at the creation and burial of gold hordes. Losers.

[Malthus]

That is some cool shit right there.

I've been looking for buried metal hordes around Rochester, but apparently the local Irondequoit sucked at the creation and burial of gold hordes. Losers.

I guess finding a buried treasure of squash, maize and beans just isn't the same.

[PDH]

I once found an arrowhead. It was rock shaped, but inside was a POTENTIAL arrowhead.

[Malthus]

I once found an arrowhead. It was rock shaped, but inside was a POTENTIAL arrowhead.

I once worked for a summer season at a Huron site just north of the city of Barrie, Ontario.

The most impressive thing I discovered was a small bit of brass sawed off something else. The reason: it was in a site dated earlier than European influence was supposed to exist in the area; it must have been traded from the coast very early on.

[The Minsky Moment]

Ironic thread title given the nature of the find.

[Malthus]

Ironic thread title given the nature of the find.

Heh, one of the key features of 'dark ages' is burial of treasures. 

[KRonn]

I once found an arrowhead. It was rock shaped, but inside was a POTENTIAL arrowhead.

I might have found an arrow head once. Shaped like one, seemed to have had some grooves where maybe it had been worked into shape. Couldn't really tell for sure though, and no idea where it is now.

[Queequeg]

Ironic thread title given the nature of the find.

Heh, one of the key features of 'dark ages' is burial of treasures. 

Yup.  The Dark Ages brought back the Indo-European fetish of bringing loot into the next life.  The Romans and Greeks were often clever enough to enjoy loot in their own time.   

[Josquius]

I hope they return it to the descendants of its rightful owner.

[Malthus]

Ironic thread title given the nature of the find.

Heh, one of the key features of 'dark ages' is burial of treasures. 

Yup.  The Dark Ages brought back the Indo-European fetish of bringing loot into the next life.  The Romans and Greeks were often clever enough to enjoy loot in their own time.   

More to the point, it would appear many of the people hiding treasures were doing so *exactly* so that they could later enjoy them in this life - but were disappointed in that ambition.

That is, they were burying them not as grave-goods, but to hide them from nasty guys with swords, hoping to pick them up when the heat was off.

Sutton Hoo was clearly an organized burial with grave-goods (it was in an elaborate ship burial), but lots of hordes appear to have been more spur-of-the-moment affairs.

[Strix]

That is some cool shit right there.

I've been looking for buried metal hordes around Rochester, but apparently the local Irondequoit sucked at the creation and burial of gold hordes. Losers.

You just have been looking in the wrong places. The local denizens find and pillage buried metal hordes around Rochester all the time. It's a dangerous business though because the police keep arresting them as they exit the abandon houses with their loads of copper piping. 

[saskganesh]

I saw this. Is there a list yet of what they have found?

[The Minsky Moment]

Ironic thread title given the nature of the find.

Heh, one of the key features of 'dark ages' is burial of treasures. 

Like vaults, and safe deposit boxes . . .

but to hide them from nasty guys with swords, hoping to pick them up when the heat was off. 

No reason to think that was at play here.

OTOH the need to hide treasure from nasty armed people is hardly a unique feature of this period; the 20th century saw more than enough of that.