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2000-Year-Old Roman Gold Ring Found in UK

A metal detectorist from Cornwall is 'still getting shivers' after discovering ancient gold in his front garden.

Mike Burke, 54, from St Just, had only been metal detecting for a year since his wife Julie bought him a Garrett Ace Apex for Christmas after they watched the television series 'The Detectorists'.

He dug up his greatest treasure to date just before New Year, when he found what it believed to be a Roman intaglio ring, dating from around the 1st or 2nd century AD.

The retired US military police officer turned maths teacher has now passed on his discovery to the finds liaison officer from the Museum of Cornish Life.

Once confirmed, the unearthed ring could challenge our knowledge of Romans in Britain, where their influence was not thought to have reached West Cornwall.

This is Mr Burke's most important historical find and ironically one he had walked past on his garden path for years.

Mr Burke said: 'I don't normally have permission to go metal detecting in my front garden, because my wife's got a lot of flowers out there.

'But I decided since everything was dying back and we were getting ready to rake everything up - I was like, it's no problem, she won't mind me going in there.'

'Next month when she starts planting seeds again, I won't be able to do it again, so it was now or never.'

Mr Burke spent 20 years in the US Army as a military police officer, including seven years as a prison guard in military prisons, and now works as a GCSE Functional Skills lecturer in Maths at the local college in Penzance.

Since taking up metal detecting as a hobby, he has found it to be the perfect way to unwind.

'It helps me relax,' Mr Burke said. 'Even if I'm out with a group of 40 other people, I stick on the headphones, go walk around a field and I'm all by myself in peace and quiet except for the beeps and bops that are coming off the metal detector.'

His previous discoveries include a 2 pence coin from the '70s, a halfpenny from the decades before and tin teddy bear that may have been part of a baby's rattle.

After finding the suspected Roman intaglio ring, he lightly rinsed it off with water and posted pictures of it on a metal detecting Facebook group, asking if he 'had something'. The first response was 'That's treasure! You need to contact FLO.'

Any potentially historically significant finds by metal detectorists need to be reported to the local finds liasion officer, who notifies the county coroner. At this point, museums can purchase the treasure from the finder and landowner for their collection, or if it is not of interest to them, the treasure is returned to the finder.  

For now, the theory is that the ring that came out of Mike's front garden flower bed is a Roman intaglio ring, made of gold and weighing 12.8 grams.

It depicts Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain, justice, peace and motherhood, engraved into a chalcedony gemstone.

Adrian Ryan (1920-98), British. Trained at the Slade School of Art; Newlyn School of Cornish Artists.