A novice metal-detecting enthusiast has said he was “stunned” to unearth a £1 million Iron Age treasure hoard during his first outing with the machine.
Safari park keeper David Booth, (35) had owned his metal detector for just five days when he discovered four 2,000-year-old gold neckbands in a Stirlingshire field.
The neckbands, dating from between the first and third century BC, are worth an estimated £1 million and the find represents the most important hoard of Iron Age gold in Scotland to date.
Mr Booth, the chief game warden at Blair Drummond Safari Park, near Stirling, joined experts at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh as the treasure was revealed yesterday.
He said he was still trying to come to terms with the importance of his discovery.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet since the moment I discovered it,” he said.
He described how he uncovered the hoard just minutes into his first outing with his new metal detector.
“I’d only had the detector for five days. I’d just practised around the house with nails and bits and pieces. I went with it for the first time, parked the vehicle up, got out, picked a direction to set off on and about seven yards away that was the first thing I came across,” he said
Souce: belfasttelegraph.co.uk