Half a million for 600 crowns: Lost detectorist discovers a unique rapier from the Bronze Age

During the mass detector event, 60-year-old John Belgrove somewhat distanced himself from the others. He noticed a nearby hill from which he wanted to look around and rejoin the group. As he climbed up, he happened to notice a strong signal. Once he had dug it out he couldn't believe his eyes.

John Belgrove paid £20 to take part in a joint detector search on private land: "There was a group of 40-50 detectorists who had searched the site before, but they were excited because a new area of land had been opened up for a group event. I signed up and didn't know anyone there. Somehow I got left behind and got lost, so I went to an elevated spot in the field and that's when I got a strong signal for this lifetime find," described the happy finder.

After the signal was detected by the detector, he dug out the clay-covered hilt of the rapier from just 20 cm away. "I thought it was just an old tin can or something. I dug about 20 cm and found an odd-shaped object that was sealed in the dirt. At that point I didn't know what it was," Belgrove explained, adding that moments later he pulled out a beautiful blade broken in two. He then proceeded to use a bronze palstav-type axe and finally pulled a decorative bracelet from the excavation. "When I saw the axe head, I understood that it was a Bronze Age treasure. My head was spinning. The blade of the sword was still sharp," he said.

All three artifacts date back to the Middle Bronze Age (about 1400 to 1275 BC). The sixty-one centimetre long broken rapier is cast in bronze. Its copper alloy hilt mimics contemporary wooden hilts. The blade is broken off at the point where it made contact with the C-shaped guard. Only two similar examples have been found in Britain, but they are not complete.

The axe is made of a copper alloy. It has high sides and concave edges that widen into a rounded blade. The blade bears traces of use or finishing. The bracelet is also made of copper alloy and is decorated with an intricate engraved geometric design with transverse stripes. There is no comparable example of a rapier, axe and bracelet artefact deposited together from this period.

The find was declared a treasure and valued at £17,000 - about 500,000 crowns. The Dorset Museum and Art Gallery has expressed an interest. Through grants and a crowdfunding campaign, they raised enough money to acquire the finds for their collections. The treasure arrived at the museum on 31 May and will undergo conservation and study before going on display.

According to Elizabeth Selby, Director of Collections at Dorset Museum, "This treasure is incredibly special. The rapier sword is really unusual because of the cast bronze hilt. The decoration on the bracelet was also quite unusual," the director explained. "There are actually no comparable items to this rapier, so the opportunity to acquire it was really important to us. The finds tell us about how people travelled, met and exchanged ideas with others in the centuries before the Roman invasion. There was a farming community whose people created enough wealth to barter or exchange items made by others," Selby concluded.

Roman Němec

Sources: dorsetecho.co.uk, tehehistoryblog.com, theguardian.com

John Belgrove with a rapier

A bronze bracelet with an intricate engraved design

axe