Metal Detectorist Unearths Rare 1,000-Year-Old Gold Pendant in Field

After hours spent sweeping a field with a metal detector, most treasure hunters might welcome some extra help with the final stretch.

For Nick Berry, 58, that assistance came in the form of an unexpected signal from the ground during a detecting rally near the real-life setting of Downton Abbey.

The carer unearthed a rare 1,000-year-old Anglo-Saxon gold pendant on farmland in Ashmansworth, Hampshire, just a few miles from Highclere Castle.

Experts say the tiny artefact may represent the hand of God. It appears to have been lost by its owner and remained buried for more than a millennium, with no other objects discovered nearby.

Mr Berry was taking part in an organised metal-detecting event when his remarkable discovery was made.

He said: ‘We decided to go to a patch of a field at the far end that nobody had detected. There were three of us searching and I was in the middle.

‘I got a really good signal. I dug down and looked into the hole and saw straight away the glint of gold.

‘I carefully pulled it out of the ground and as I did I had a really strange feeling and felt quite emotional.

‘Then I gently brushed away the loose soil and there in my hand, ironically, was a hand.

‘I just stared at it. I knew straight away it was something very different and could tell it was Anglo–Saxon.’

After more than 30 years of metal detecting, he said he had ‘never seen anything like it’. Other people he consulted were equally struck by the find.

‘It is the find of a lifetime. I will never find anything like it again,’ he said.

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Highclere Castle, about an 11-minute drive from the discovery site, is best known as the exterior and principal filming location for the long-running television drama Downton Abbey.

Mr Berry, a married father of two from Northampton, reported the pendant to his local Finds Liaison Officer. It has since been transferred to the British Museum, which has declared it treasure and said its uniqueness means it should be preserved for the nation.

He was told the pendant dates from the early medieval Anglo-Saxon period, most likely the ninth or tenth century.

‘They don’t think it was made in the country but came from the east because of the style of it.

‘It must have belonged to a high-status individual like some sort of noble person and was definitely worn around the neck like a talisman.

‘The hand has always had a strong symbolic meaning, like when you shake hands to show the other person you haven’t got a weapon in your hand.

‘It has already been claimed as treasure and I probably won’t be getting it back. I imagine the British Museum will have it.

‘I have no idea what it is worth. It weighs 1.6g and is very high carat you can tell by the colour,’ he said.

Julian Evan-Hart, editor of Treasure Hunting magazine, said: ‘This is a truly wonderful and evocative find, the cause of many future ponderings as to origin and potential meaning no doubt.

‘As far as I’m aware it appears to be unique and judging by the reeded section and loop style most likely dates to the mid–Anglo–Saxon period.

‘The hand has often been symbolically related to Christianity and features as “The Hand of God” on several late Saxon/Viking period silver coins and later ecclesiastical artwork.

‘In this case it would seem likely that this too represents a “Hand of God” manufactured in the form of a gold pendant.

‘Its original owner would most certainly have been of a very high status in the society of the time.’