#garnets

Mica schist with garnets. Field Book Of Common Rocks And Minerals. 1925.

In spring 2023, two metal detectorists sweeping a plowed hillside near Donington-on-Bain in Lincolnshire started picking up small flashes of gold in the churned soil.

What they’d stumbled into was a tight cluster of five 7th-century pieces, gold-and-garnet jewelry, including several pendants and a domed, garnet-set mount that may have started life as part of a brooch.

Because there were no beads, spacers, bones, or grave goods, archaeologist Lisa Brundle (Portable Antiquities Scheme) argued it probably wasn’t a plowed-out necklace burial, and instead may represent a goldsmith’s stash of older pieces for reworking, a deliberate “ritual” deposit, or valuables hidden during a tense moment and never retrieved.

It’s the largest known group of gold-and-garnet jewelry from Lincolnshire, and it was reported as Treasure and later acquired by Lincoln Museum in 2025.

#metaldetector #treasure #history #historylovers #artifacts

January birthstone is the beautiful garnet, with such a wide variety of colors, sizes and shapes. These are garnets from Pakistan and Afghanistan. All are available.