A metal detectorist in Hampshire, England, has unearthed a 1,000-year-old gold pendant that experts say likely depicts the “Hand of God,” a Christian symbol used on late Saxon and Viking-era coins.
Nick Berry, 58, a father of two from Northampton, made the find while searching farmland near Ashmansworth, a village close to Highclere Castle, the mansion familiar to television audiences as the filming location for “Downton Abbey.”
“There were three of us searching, and I was in the middle,” Berry told Bournemouth News and Picture Service (BNPS). “I got a really good signal. I dug down and looked into the hole and saw straight away the glint of gold.”
Berry said he felt a “really strange feeling and felt quite emotional” pulling the object from the ground. “I just stared at it. I knew straight away it was something very different and could tell it was Anglo-Saxon,” he said. “I have been metal detecting for over 30 years and have never seen anything like it. And everyone I have spoken to about it has said the same.”
The pendant is believed to date to the ninth or tenth century and may have been worn around the neck by a wealthy or high-status individual. No other artifacts were found at the site, suggesting it was simply dropped and lost by its original owner more than a thousand years ago.
“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,” Berry said. “It must have belonged to a high-status individual, like some sort of noble person, and [it] was definitely worn around the neck like a talisman.”
Julian Evan-Hart, editor of Treasure Hunting magazine, told BNPS the design fits a known pattern. “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,” he said. “In this case, it would seem likely that this too represents a ‘Hand of God’ manufactured in the form of a gold pendant.”
Berry reported the discovery to a local finds liaison officer, and the pendant was sent to the British Museum for examination. It has since been officially declared treasure. Under Britain’s treasure process, Berry and the landowner stand to split a payment based on the pendant’s market value if a museum or other public institution acquires it — a sum BNPS reports could run into five or six figures in British pounds.
“I have no idea what it is worth. It weighs 1.6g and is very high carat, you can tell by the color,” Berry said. He called it “the find of a lifetime,” adding, “I will never find anything like it again.”
The discovery joins a string of recent finds by British hobbyists, including three Bronze Age gold bracelets uncovered near Carlisle earlier this year and a 2,000-year-old Roman settlement in the Cotswolds found after a detectorist turned up two ancient cavalry swords last year.
