The Pewsey Hoard was excavated and transported to a museum by the finders, who probably did not wear gloves. Although precautions against contamination (wearing disposable gloves, using disposable metal scalpels and sterilized glass vials) were taken when sampling the vessels, it is possible that the sampled surfaces had already been contaminated prior to the arrival of the objects at the museum.
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Of course. The ‘finders’ were looking for gold, which I am sure they ‘never found’.
And no vermin or insects contaminated these vessels in the intervening approx 1800 years.
They should have worn disposable gloves. They could have been digging up an old outhouse.
Detectorists - really great show