Museum artefacts to go on public display for first time

From Northampton Chronicle & Echo:

New items including 3,000-year-old bronze axe heads have gone on display to the public at Daventry Town Council Museum.

The museum is showing the items among many from the Moot Hall Museum Store, taken over recently by the town council.

The store houses most of the items previously owned by Daventry District Council's Moot Hall Museum, however, many of the artefacts have not been on display before. Pieces on display this weekend include artwork completed for the 1991 Daventry Arts Festival, Celtic bronze axe heads dating from 1,000BC found on Borough Hill and mosaic pieces discovered in the town.

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Secrets of 'unlucky' Bradford hill fort under the microscope

From the Wiltshire Times:

Described by one archaeologist as the unluckiest hill fort in Wiltshire, the Iron Age past of Budbury in Bradford on Avon remains to this day shrouded in mystery.

Local historians have been trying to unlock Budbury’s secrets ever since eminent archaeologist GJ Wainwright uncovered evidence of a substantial hill fort in the area, which is now developed into housing, dating back to as early as 600BC.

Wainwright believed he was on the verge of uncovering a burial mound, so the discovery of the hill fort, thought to cover up to six acres of land, came as a complete surprise.

From Monday, Bradford on Avon Museum will host a three-week long exhibition charting the history of Budbury, which will include 16,000 pieces of Iron Age pottery, as well as needles made out of bone and bronze fingerings, discovered during Wainwright’s excavation on loan from the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes.

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Treasure hunter's Iron Age find

An amateur treasure hunter unearthed two Iron Age bronze bowls and a wine strainer just months after taking up metal detecting, an inquest has heard.

The rare artefacts, of "great importance for the UK," were found in Newport, south Wales, in December 2007.

It is believed the objects dating from around AD 25 were a religious offering.

The Gwent Coroner declared them treasure trove. Security guard Craig Mills, who found the bowls, said he did not "have a clue" how old they were".

The 35-year-old came across the items in the Langstone area of the city, only nine months after he took up metal detecting.

Mr Mills said: "I didn't realise how significant it was.

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