[CPProt.net] Bronze-age treasures rescued after eBay sale

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Bronze-age treasures rescued after eBay sale
FRED ATTEWILL
December 23, 2005
 
RARE bronze-age treasures were sold on eBay for £205, a coroner heard
yesterday. 

The 3,000-year-old haul was eventually handed to the British Museum after it
was bought by a Dutch archeologist described as the Netherlands' version of
Tony Robinson. 


The series of 15 axe heads was believed to have been dug up using metal
detectors by a couple known as Stuart and Tracey, from the Milton Keynes
area of Buckinghamshire. 

When the couple moved to France in 2004 they gave the find to friends John
Couchman and Lorraine Ayton who promptly put them up for sale on eBay. 

A treasure trove inquest yesterday heard five bids were made and the axe
heads - which would have been used for defence and chopping wood - were
shipped over to Dutch collector Jeroen Zuiderwijk, who paid just a fraction
of their real value. 

Luckily however, the archaeologist, an experimental metallurgist at a theme
park, reconsidered their value and got in touch with UK museum authorities. 

The find was described by expert Ros Tyrrell as only the second ever
bronze-age collection to be found in the Buckinghamshire area. 

The region is rich in archeological finds which have been uncovered with the
construction of the new city of Milton Keynes. The A5 is also an old Roman
road. 

However, the coroner heard that a lot of treasure was never handed in by
unscrupulous metal detectors known as "night hawks" who only operated under
cover of darkness. "It would have been such a waste if it had been sold
individually," Ms Tyrrell told the inquest in Milton Keynes,
Buckinghamshire. 

"Now it will stay together and will be available to see if people want to
study it. You can only study what is available and this will be a valuable
addition to our collection." 

The axe heads, held by the British Museum, are set to be handed to the
Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury. 

"We are very grateful to Mr Zuiderwijk. He could have kept quiet and we
would never have known. We would have lost our ability to study them," Ms
Tyrrell added. "These axe heads were high-tech in their day. They looked
really swanky with their gold colouring." 

Yesterday at the treasure trove inquest, Milton Keynes coroner Rodney Corner
formally declared that the treasure belonged to the Crown. 

Since the 1996 Treasure Act, finders are no longer keepers and must report
any objects more than 300 years old.

http://news.scotsman.com/