Detecting Wales Rally 75 - When in Rome . . .

[Neil]

Detecting Wales Rally 75 – When in Rome . . .

Sunday saw an early start and a return to the Moorlinch site that had been visited just the week before. This week however apart from the previous fields we had another eight to shake our coils at with a promise of more Roman and Medieval metalworking aching to be salvaged.

I personally was suffering a tad at the 7am pick up, following a late night out three nights running, and only having had about 5 hours sleep. My mood was only lightened when Taff Laff started barracking some birds with “You’re a Rubbish 80’s band!” Turned out he had spotted a Flock of Seagulls in a field along the M5!

The in-car debate bounced eclectically from one topic to another focusing briefly on lamppost distance and Reggae Mike spotting, onto how to know what speed you should be going, Taff’s obsession with The Communards, and then full circle and back to the band Flock of Seagulls again. Did they exist?  If they did, what did they sing, and should Nobby really style his hair on them?  As conversations do, this naturally led onto Justin being Facebook friends with Adam Ant, and Taff questioning his sexuality – Adam’s, not Justin’s I hasten to add.

Jesus, at one point I thought I was still asleep, and having some kind of lucid dream, but no I was indeed awake and this was reality. The only saving grace was that Taff wasn’t driving!

The time flew by and we arrived to find the loyal Detecting Wales members turning up in their droves, and at about 9.15am we hit the fields eager to discover what they day had in store for us.

Today as usual we had detectorists from all over the world, including Poland, Czech Republic, South Africa, France, England, Ireland and Wales.  It was brought to my attention later in the day by an impeccable source, that someone had taken umbrage with the various nationalities that were present, and had been voicing an opinion regarding it. I’d love to know who it was, as it will be their last rally with us. We pride ourselves on how friendly DW rallies are, so if anyone has any further information they want to share with me anonymously let me know via PM.  I hasten to add this subject is not for public debate on DW. Get in touch with me directly please.

Anyway back to the more important matter of detecting, and I had barely stepped foot in a field when Deadlock was signalling for a photo, as he had just unearthed a cut quarter from a voided long cross. A tiny little item which proves his machine is certainly working well.

Next in line was Dances With Badgers who for once was off the beach and getting soil amongst his little toes instead of sand. Mike had a broad smile on his face as he initially showed me two cracking Romans and then later signalled he was up to five, and I think as the day progressed his score went even higher, to the point that I am considering changing his name to Dances With Romans.

Close to Mike was Da Monkey who was joining the Latin theme with the first Roman brooch of the day in the style of an enamelled umbonate disc brooch. I don’t recall us ever having one of these turn up on a DW rally before and I am looking forward to Andy’s cleaning job.

It all went a bit Roman crazy after this, as not only were casual losses turning up in every field, but the area where the Badger & Monkey were finding seemed to be producing for a number of people. Not me I hasten to add as I couldn’t find a needle in a stack of needles at the moment. Taff however was more than capable with at least seven unearthed along with half a medieval purse bar..

Deeper Sweeper was having a stellar day with firstly a shield carrying three lions rampant on the front that stunk of Medieval. Bizarrely I believe there was one found by another detectorist on the previous rally. I do wonder if they could perhaps be of a military nature and used on the front of encampment tents. This was certainly a practice during the Boer War and the idea had to start somewhere.

Not content with just the one stand out find of the day I later bumped into him in field two (just after I suggest he went into field three) brandishing something he initially thought may have been a kids sheriff badge, but thankfully realised had a lot more age before he hedged it. Coincidentally I had been flicking through Bennetts Artefacts only an hour early and I am pretty certain that it’s a silvered Roman star shaped Tutlus brooch. If I had thought Da Monkey’s brooch had been scarce earlier, then now we were at a whole different ball game. These brooch finds along with Samian ware were beginning to point to it being once a very wealthy site.

Just to further underline that theory up popped Colin with a silver washed Roman, and behind him was Wayno going one better with a silver denarii (I remember you finding your first one, a Julia Domna on a DW rally many moons ago mate). Wayno also had a smattering of Romans and a milled silver Joey. I think it was his father who also found a clean example of a William III sixpence that for once had not been tokenised.

Speaking of tokens, I must have seen at least six throughout the day in various conditions and mainly of the Civitas Bristol variety. Buckles seemed quite common with a large silvered one being found in field two that may indeed turn out to be silver.

Its hard to recall everything, but I can confirm young Nobby had what looks like it will be a stunning follis once the crud has lifted. There were several army cap badges that surfaced along with the odd milled silver, musket balls, copper coinage, buckles , a guestimated eight hammered coins, tons of Iron Age pottery,  oh and a conservative figure of 60 Roman coins!

Dominic discovered his first medieval bee hive thimble that he is going to kindly donate to his nephew. Well possibly, or he may just let him have a quick look at it and snatch it back!

Hammerhoid and Cut Half had a multitude of finds amongst them and ones in particular that stand out include what I think is a Roman belt slider (its certainly in the Roman military fittings book) and a coin weight that hints at the commerce taking place on this site. Celtic Spikey had a hammered quarter and our own TaffLaff even found a cut half that I luckily captured an in the soil shot of.

The Rooky Pair also had their first thimble, with Nordine discovering a Roman fibula and Roman coinage. As for myself, I unearthed a piece of furniture fitting that for once I was happy to find as its almost complete and has a touch of Georgian Rocco styling about it. I am in the middle of one of those “dark spells” at the moment, so I was relatively pleased with it. It happens to all of us from time to time and you just got to keep the faith and swing through it – so to speak.

I got a feeling the amount of Roman coinage found will be keeping some of our resident Roman numismatic experts (Doc, Probono, Cheffy, Alan, etc) busy all week with ID requests. They seem to be relatively late ones in the main and the soil has certainly been kind to a lot of them.

At 6pm the vast majority had departed and we headed off to see the farmer, who was happy to see us, and more than willing to have us back which is great news. On that note Chef is building a finds picture of the farm for the farmer to have in a frame, so if anyone has anything from the farm they would like to donate get in touch with Cheffy.

I personally can’t wait to return here once the plough has worked its magic, so mark your diaries now ladies and gents for several dates in March 2015 – I got a feeling they will be memorable.

The next rally will be announced in a week or so, until then keep checking in at Wales’ Premier Metal Detecting site.

Keep the Faith

Neil

[Neil]

[Neil]

Sorry for size of photos - won't be using Photobucket again - having pc problems at the mo, so have no choice.

[Neil]

Reserved - photos coming shortly

[Neil]

More

[Neil]

Close up images:

[dances with badgers]

i ran i ran so far away lol

[handyman [Alan}]

well done everyone, and an excellent report Neil

I would hope that all those finding the roman and medieaval coins and artefacts, would make the effort and record them with their FLO as it will certainly help add to the bigger picture of whats going on in the area.

[colin]

posting this on behalf of terry hes hoping its roman I think,looks like a racing car body to me lol 

[Chef Geoff]

Fabulous write up as ever Neil it was almost like being there well I was but not that you'd think it by my finds
It was another great day and well done all for filling your holes and, in the main taking not reburying iron, if anything I think we had too much land but at least next year we'll be able to plan a few rallies out to cover it all.
I did say in my little talk about field 8 possibly being good but there is no way in gods earth I expected Roman and it's an exciting find for the village so not to harp on but please record your finds as I'll be putting in a report to the Somerset FLO about the discovery and also about the Roman coins from the corner of field 2, so in 6 months time I hope to hear that loads of finds have been recorded from this farm.
I had forgotten all about the Sheriff's badge so just did some searching and yes it is indeed a Roman brooch and a rare one at that at least on these shore's as it's a continental made brooch and far earlier than I would have guessed at around 50-100AD so well done the finder and Neil for spotting it
I think we may get some answers next year after the turn of the plough as too why 2 Nobel coin weights and 5 seal matrix have come off two fields but lacking the coins you would expect from a gathering site.
This site will be hard to beat but we'll try

[jtalbot0001]

That was a very good read. Thanks for the great day out yesterday, didn't find much myself but was good to see the other finds on the day. I was lucky enough to find a few trade tokens, I thought I found one but after coming home realised I had another. The one I showed Geoff and Rob was James Cane of Stalbridge (I forget who won the debate of the town name lol) 1666 and with a glove not a hand as I first thought. Stalbridge is 30 miles away to the south from where we were. My other one was a William Hopkins of Axbridge 1656 with flear-de-lis. Axbridge is 16 miles to the north. So a popular destination it seems, wonder why.

[Dale]

Great write up Neil

Photo 1 to me looks to be a trefoil handle off another seal?

[Neil]

Do you know what Dale - I was just thinking the same thing!

Glad you all are enjoying the read.

[Chef Geoff]

Well spotted Dale but Roman or Georgian ummm

[diggaduff]

Lots of cracking finds well done all