[MR] Viking find could net pair L500, 000 : www . telegraph.co.uk

[David Chessler]

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Viking find could net pair L500,000

By Nigel Reynolds Arts Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:44am BST 23/07/2007

Two amateur treasure hunters are in line for a 
pay-out of up to L500,000 after a small pot they 
found buried in a field turned out to contain the 
most important hoard of Viking silver and gold 
found in this country for 150 years.

The silver pot that contained the Viking hoard


The silver pot that contained the Viking hoard

Packed inside the ornately carved 8th century 
silver gilt pot, experts at the British Museum 
found 617 coins, jewellery and ingots from as far 
afield as Samarkand, Afghanistan, Russia, France, 
and Ireland. The pot had been buried in a field 
near Harrogate in Yorkshire, probably in the year 927.

"This really is the world in a vessel," said 
Jonathan Williams, the keeper of European 
pre-history at the British Museum, where the 
treasure was put on display yesterday. "It is a 
quite incredible find and a very special moment for us at the museum."

The discovery was made in January - but kept 
secret until yesterday - by father and son David 
and Andrew Whelan, from Leeds. They had spent 
hundreds of hours over the past three years 
scouring local fields with metal detectors without finding anything of value.

After the North Yorkshire coroner yesterday 
declared the find to be treasure - entitling the 
Whelans to half its value and the farmer on whose 
land it was discovered to the other half - David 
Whelan, 51, described his moment of triumph as "a thing of dreams".


Once cleaned, the pot was found to be silver 
gilt, possibly an ecclesiastical vessel plundered 
from northern France. It is carved with vines, 
leaves and six hunting scenes showing lions, stags and a horse.

The value of the hoard is to be determined by an 
independent tribunal, but yesterday it was 
conservatively put at L750,000, although some 
suggested that it might be worth more than £1 million.

To David Whelan, the value matters little. He 
said: "We don't need owt. We've got all we want. 
If we had found one coin we would have been over the moon."

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