Metal Detectorist ‘shaking with happiness’ after Bronze Age discovery

A metal detectorist said he was “shaking with happiness” after discovering many artefacts in the Scottish Borders from the Bronze Age

A complete horse harness and sword have been discovered at a site near Peebles in June by Mariusz Stepien.

Experts have said that this uncovering of the artefacts was of “national significance”.

The soil on the site had preserved the leather and wooded parts of the artefacts, which allowed experts to trace the origins of the straps that connected the rings to the buckles.

This enabled the experts to see how Bronze Age horse harnesses were assembled for the first time.

This comes after Gavin Williamson has said that the education and care of the country’s children is “a national priority” as the government plans to return students to schools throughout England in September.

Mr Stepien said that he was searching the field with friends when he found a bronze object that had been buried half a metre under the soil.

He said: “I thought ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before’ and felt from the very beginning that this might be something spectacular and I’ve just discovered a big part of Scottish history.

“I was over the moon, actually shaking with happiness.”

Mr Stepien and his friends had been camping in the field of the dig-site as archaeologists were spending 22 days investigating the find.

He said: “Every day there were new objects coming out which changed the context of the find, every day we learned something new.

“I’m so pleased that the earth revealed to me something that was hidden for more than 3,000 years. I still can’t believe it happened.”

Archaeologists found a bronze age sword still within its scabbard, along with decorated straps, buckles, rings and ornaments, as well as a set of axle caps for a chariot wheel.

There is also evidence that a decorative “rattle pendant”, the first to be found in Scotland, and only the third in the UK, that would have hung from the horse harness.

The Head of the Crown Office’s Treasure Trove Unit, Emily Freeman, said that it was “a nationally-significant find.”

She said: “So few Bronze Age hoards have been excavated in Scotland, it was an amazing opportunity for us to not only recover bronze artefacts, but organic material as well.

“There is still a lot of work to be done to assess the artefacts and understand why they were deposited.”

This comes after face masks will be made mandatory in Northern Ireland when indoors, after the R number, an important measurement of how quickly COVID-19 is spreading, rose in the region; The re-opening of pubs, which do not sell food, in Northern Ireland has also been postponed.

Peter Reavill, a finds liaison officer from Shropshire, said: “With so many people spending so much more time in their gardens, there have been some really interesting finds. I’ve seen some tobacco pipes, some pieces of pottery and even prehistoric flint tools.”

A finds liaison officer from Surrey and Hampshire, Simon Maslin, said that he had seen some spectacular finds that had given historians insights into local history. He said: “It’s the stuff that appears more humdrum that actually tends to be more archaeologically important.”