Viking hacksilver hoard found by myself and mate the other week. I am excited by this as it is an add on to our original find as found in the same place. It has been my ambition for 23 years since original find to do the Warton Hoard justice. It was poorly publicised at the time. Nobody really knows about it. No mention on the portable antiquities scheme and no digital photos. I wanted to do the hoard justice by finding more of it and get it the publicity it deserves. We originally found hacksilver in two parts in 1997/98. This was a scattered hoard. 3 silver Arabic dirhems. 898-912 AD. 2 halves of silver armring. Silver ingots. Part of Hiberno- Norse bracelet. One ingot had a cross scribed on it. . Originally we thought the site was a boat burial due to iron nail finds and geophysics results. In 98 archeologists did some trenches but nothing else found I never gave up on this field always believing there was something we were missing. Went back year on year after ploughing. In 2016 I found another Viking silver ingot in same area. It had subsoil on it. I told finds liason officer my theory that a hoard could be deeper. Last week we detected further hacksilver Approx 80 grams. I got a deep signal from the large lead Viking trade weight a good 14 inches deep. The silver was with this. Hacked pieces of pennanular brooch we think plus ingots and fragments of coins. I emailed Gareth Williams - curator of early medieval at the British Museum. He told me this is an exciting find and they would acquire it if Lancaster museum do not. I wish for the new finds to go to Lancaster Museum to go with the original find as a whole Viking hoard to be better displayed than it is currently. Gareth Williams agreed the hacked silver could be parts of a pennanular brooch. Few ingots there too. Some coin fragments. He said he thinks they are Viking imitation coins called blundered. He thinks of Edward the Elder. He thinks deposition around 925 AD. Also a large lead Viking traders weight found in same hole. It has a bronze insert. It weighs 200g. It must have been for large transactions of silver bullion. Gareth agreed all finds are related. He said the lead traders weight is normally uncommon to be buried with a hoard but not unheard of. We never gave up on this site and will continue to search.
