A gold coin found by a metal detectorist in Norfolk and believed to date from around AD 625 has split specialists, and the area coroner has put off deciding whether it is treasure.
At a hearing reported on 13 November, Area Coroner Johanna Thompson told Norfolk Coroner’s Court at County Hall that she would not rule that day and would give her determination in writing. The account of the hearing, including the evidence from three specialists and the coroner’s remarks, comes from Kelly Strange of the Beccles & Bungay Journal.
“Obviously there is a lot of material to be considered,” Thompson said. “I’m not going to make a final determination today. I am going to have to carefully consider the evidence submitted today to make a clear conclusion which I will give in writing.”
She added: “I do not want to rush this.”
The object is a gold thrymsa, a small Anglo-Saxon coin, found at an undisclosed location by detectorist Ray Jenkins and reported to the coroner so that its legal status could be settled. Jenkins sat in court with friends and family, and staff at County Hall had filled the public gallery.
Three specialists, two readings of the same coin
Dr Adrian Marsden, a specialist in historic coins, attended in person and insisted the thrymsa was genuine. Dr John Naylor, National Finds Adviser for the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, and Dr Wendy Scott, a curator at Norwich Castle Museum, challenged its authenticity. Both gave evidence by live video link.
The proposed date of around AD 625 places the coin in the period of the Sutton Hoo burial, the East Anglian ship grave behind the project to rebuild the Sutton Hoo ship. What the court heard, repeatedly, was that the designs on the Norfolk coin are not the ones ordinarily associated with that period.
For Marsden, that was the point in the coin’s favour. He said experts needed to recognise the significance of the Norfolk findspot, drawing a comparison with Rendlesham in Suffolk, an important Anglo-Saxon royal settlement. His frustration centred on what he regarded as a circular argument: an object that may be the first known example of its type was being doubted precisely because no other examples exist. If anything previously unknown is dismissed for differing from established examples, his argument ran, archaeology could never recognise something genuinely new.
Naylor and Scott were not persuaded. They pointed to features they considered inconsistent with established examples of early Anglo-Saxon coinage, and to imagery they said belonged several centuries later. The court heard that some symbols are more closely associated with Scandinavian art of the ninth or tenth centuries, and that the great majority of comparable artistic evidence comes from Sweden and Denmark, with similar designs also appearing on Danish coins.
The figure holding a cross
Much of the hearing turned on a single image: a human figure holding a cross.
Figures of that type are generally shown wearing longer tunics, the court heard, whereas the figure on the Norfolk coin appeared to have bent, exposed legs. The grip came under scrutiny too. In comparable imagery the figure more commonly touches the cross; here it appeared to be grasping it tightly.
Even the positioning of the fingers was examined, with questions raised about their shape, their apparent extension behind the cross and the relationship between the hand and the religious symbol. The reverse of the coin also presented difficulties.
Not everything pointed one way. The court heard that some letter forms were not dissimilar to those found on comparable early medieval coins, an element supporting the coin’s possible authenticity.
The Journal summed up the position as follows: “There is no doubt that the find itself is genuine. The dispute is whether it dates back as far as suggested or was a later replica or fake.” That is the paper’s framing of a disagreement the specialists themselves left unresolved in court.
Why the written ruling matters
Treasure inquests generally consider the age, composition and circumstances of discovery of an object, the questions that shape most hoard and single-find cases, from the 447 Roman coins a digger broke out of the A2 to the Bronze Age gold bracelets found at Malmesbury.
The Norfolk case is different. Before reaching a determination, the coroner had to weigh conflicting evidence about whether the object is genuinely an early medieval coin at all. Date is doing double work: it is both the disputed fact and one of the tests.
The hearing also follows changes to treasure legislation that broadened the definition to include certain objects of exceptional historical, archaeological or cultural significance. Thompson described the object as potentially exceptional and stressed the importance of reaching a considered decision, particularly in light of those changes.
Her written determination will establish the legal status of the disputed discovery. No determination has yet been given.
For Jenkins, who sat in the courtroom surrounded by friends and family, the wait for an answer continues. For the specialists, the disagreement remains: an extraordinary survival from the generation of Sutton Hoo, or something made a great deal later.