My friend Adrian had secured another new permission for us to detect on and being so close to both our houses we were eager to get out and detect. We looked at the old maps and even though there was little to suggest much activity, we knew that old features were showing on the maps in the surrounding area.
We both started detecting a field close to the land owner’s house with his pet horse as company. After an hour or so, I was ready for giving up as there was little if nothing to be found. I asked Adrian if he wanted to go somewhere else but he suggested that we give it another while as he had found a George II penny near the bottom of the field. A bit reluctantly, I decided to give it another go and went to the other bottom side of the field.
After about 10 minutes I got a screaming 44-46 signal on my 705, Typically I thought that this was going to be either a large piece of lead or tin can close to the surface. As signals had been scarce that day I knew I had to dig every signal.
I dug a plug and couldn't believe my eyes. Right at the side was an axe shape object with the blade pointing up. I knew this was going to be an amazing find but I was very cautious as I had been fooled before. As you can see from the video I was nearly underwhelmed.
I knew deep inside that this was Bronze Age and decided to carefully give it a clean. To my surprise, a beautiful herring bone, lozenge and diamond pattern could be seen clearly on one side and less so on the other. This was to be an Early Decorated Bronze Age axe and approximately 4000 years old. The oldest find yet that I had made with my 705. I was stunned and couldn't take it in, Adrian was over the moon for me and so was the landowner who couldn't believe it had been lying under his ground for that length of time.
I quickly reported it to the Ulster museum and the curator was really amazed and the superb decoration on such an old axe. As we speak the axe will be going into the museum shortly to be scientifically recorded. So the moral of the story is too always dig those beeps even if you think they are rubbish. The X-TERRA 705 has never let me down and with finds like this you never know what you are going to unearth next.
Gavin – Northern Ireland, UK.
