Posted on 02/28/2021 10:05:10 PM PST by 11th_VA
One of the most spectacular bronze age weapons discovered in northern Europe has been found by a metal detectorist on a Jersey beach.
The perfectly preserved 35cm long spear head made from copper alloy was found buried point down at the low water mark on one of the lowest tides of the year.
It is in such good condition that the finder Jay Cornick thought it must be a modern fishing spear. He put it in his bag and didn’t think much more about it until he showed it to archaeologists from Jersey Heritage.
The spearhead was found last August but the find has only now been made public after radio carbon dating confirmed it is at least 3,000 years old. Remains of the wooden haft which were still in the socket of the spear head also confirmed it had been made from field maple, which was commonly used for hafting tools and weapons in the late Bronze Age.
No similar spear head has been found in the Channel Islands although a handful of similar examples have been found in France which is just 14 miles from Jersey. Most bronze age spear heads discovered in the islands have been much smaller and part of hoards that were deliberately broken and buried as part of some long forgotten ritual.
Mr Cornick, 34, an electrical engineer, had detected on the beach near Gorey Harbour in the east of the island many times before making the find. He said: “It was very close to the harbour wall. Down on that part of the beach we usually find a lot of musket balls and old bullets and that’s what it sounded like. It was just about the first signal I got, I was in two minds whether to dig it but I did anyway...
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
STOP PLATE TECTONICS NOW !!!
If I ever came across these kinds of relics, it would become a family heirloom. The world would not know about its existence, of something that’s rare but common at the same time.
My thoughts are different if I came across something more substantial, like the Ark of the Covenant, but a spearhead is not something that I’d want to share with the world.
Jeez I’m getting old. I live in NJ. I thought they meant New Jersey.
Jeez I’m getting old. I live in NJ. I thought they meant New Jersey.
I thought they meant New Jersey, too.
I was thinking, “Wow! They found that in New Jersey?”
New Jersey has reached the Bronze Age?!?! I didn’t realize.
In Joisy! Na.
Jersey is my home island. A Neolithic structure La Hogue Bie is well worth a visit. The island has several castles and early Roman structures as well as the brutal Nazi shoreline structures and an underground German WW2 hospital
Wise guy. :-)
Losing one’s chit in the surf can be problem.
Finding it even worse.
Do we have any other metal dectorists besides me here? I recently found some old musket balls and an iron arrow head, but nothing that beautiful yet.
I’ve always wanted to get a metal detector, for kicks and giggles. But I wouldn’t really know where to target an area for anything of value, especially historic worth. Most Civil War battlefields have basically been stripped clean now. Areas that were fields of trees then are gone now, and vice-versa. I was raised on a mountain ridge on the MD/WV border, and as a kid I’d go relic digging with a childhood friend. There used to be a farm on the hillside, and we’d find all manner of things with our bare hands - patent medicine bottles, milk jugs, old glass electrial insulators from poles from back in the early 1900’s. Too bad we didn’t have a metal detector back then. The hillside we searched as kids is still undeveloped - too steep. I bet there’s a lot of hidden goodies still there, just under the topsoil.
You should give it a go. You can get a good detector for only a few hundred dollars. There are lots of people out there all over the USA doing metal detecting and finding neat things. There aren’t many of us at all here, so I spend a lot of time doing research for new places around Tokyo to go hunting. There’s stuff everywhere waiting to be discovered.
Yeah, looking at the location, I bet the Nazis poured a LOT of concrete.
Their gov’t usually confiscates anything of value, which reinforces their regards towards their subjects: We. Own. You. Just what the left wants to say to us...
Oh, I agree. My impetus isn’t really just the intrinsic value of a discovery, it’s also the historical value. Sure, you’ll find trinkets and baubles just under your feet, but I’d love to find something that ties us to our past. Another picce of the puzzle that shows us the roadmap of where we are, and how we got here.
Which is why it becomes heirloom, from my 4300th generation grandfather back in the day when he made it by hand.
I was about to ask if the prospector found my sunglasses until I read it was the Channel Island and not the state.
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