Monday day 3 - detecting day 1
We started the day with a walk into Vinkovci for breakfast and to buy some snacks for the days detecting. Food in Croatia (away from the tourist areas) is very inexpensive. I ordered beef and eggs while Richard tucked into a plate of ham n eggs (bacon and eggs). I was presented with an 8 Oz fillet steak topped with two fried eggs. We drank copious amounts of coffee and when the bill came it was under £15. This value for money continued with our lunch, 45p pepperoni pizzas from the bakery, a hearty meal.
Later in the morning we traveled to the museum in Vinkovci for a meeting with Hrvoje, a very enlightened archaeologist when it comes to metal detecting. We chewed the fat sizing up each other, I soon realized he was someone I could work with. He then took us on a tour showing us the metal detecting exhibition where finders had displayed their finds in four 5' glass cases. We arranged to help hrvoje the following day on an important cemetery site on the outskirts of Vinkovci, and said our good byes.
As we left the museum Steve says to Richard "if you're nice to me I'll pay your parking ticket". Sure enough as we got to his land rover there was a ticket on window with a 56.00 kuna fine (£6.00). Steve's land rover parked next to Richard's had apparently been immune to ticketing. Steve later spotted the traffic warden and called him over. He cancelled the ticket when he knew we were Steve’s friends, and we were assured it wouldn't happen again no matter where we parked. He then asked us if we liked football, and took of his shirt to show us his West Ham tattoo... Surreal!
One of the main reasons of the trip was to search Croatian rivers. Steve arranged a trip to the river Vuka. We drove off-road about two miles before arriving at Steve's Roman river crossing. I immediately realized the river was going to be a problem. Most rivers in the UK have been dredged deeper to improve farming, and this is something also happening in Croatia. The Vuka has been dredged down 5 meters to lower the water table of the adjoining farmland. This is great for farming but not for river detecting, and after an hour of trying, I'd only found a few fishing weights.
So I got out of the water, took off my waders and switched the coil on my CTX 3030 to the 17" and started to search the area where the dredgings had been spread.
I started finding roman coins with river deposits stuck to then, which I recorded via the store button on the CTX 3030.
After digging a few lumps of broken drinks cans, I got a sweet repeatable high pitch signal, which I dug to retrieve a black roman coin with a perfect bust of an emperor. I shouted to Steve "I've found a Siliqua'. I didn't know what a big deal this was, we often find them in the UK, but this is not so in Croatia where they are a lot rarer. Steve ID'ed the coin as Gratian and we all agreed it was a lovely coin that I was very skilful in finding... well this is my understanding of the ensuing conversation between Steve and our two Croatian detectorist guides!
Tuesday day 4 - detecting day 2
We had arranged to meet Steve our hotel at 8am, so I was surprised to see him walk into the bar while I was drinking my first coffee of the day at 7am. I asked why he was early, and he replied he'd arranged to meet us at 8am and “where’s Sheddy”? I said it was seven and he argued it was eight... He checked with girls serving coffee and they said it was seven... They pointed him to the clock, which also said seven.... He then accused us all of being “in on it together", winding him up! He then went and asked the other customers in the bar before finally believing he was an hour early. Later he accused Sheddy of adjusting his clock at the bar the night before… which he freely admitted he had!
Eventually we were all ready for a days detecting. We traveled for about 20 minutes stopping just to pickup some snacks. The site we'd been invited to search was a 4th century roman cemetery.
We arrived half-an-hour before the archeologists, so Steve took us on a site tour first showing us where the Roman remains were concentrated, before switching to more recent historic events. He said we were in no-mans land on the frontline in the battle between the Croats and the Serbs. Steve pointed out a house in the distance with a white satellite dish on the roof "that was my sniper position". At the opposite side of the 2km field was an orchard where the Serbs had had their artillery. So we were in a field that had previously been heavily mined and where a modern conflict had raged only 23 years previously.
The archeologists arrived and we started detecting. We all started to find roman coins, which we bagged and recorded on our CTX 3030's. Then the archaeologists also recorded positions before recording them. We found 21 coins in just over an hour, but more interesting to me was all the junk. Parts of RPGs, jacketed bullets and anti-mine hammers were everywhere... Stuff hopefully I'll never see home in England!
Before leaving the site I was asked if I would like to look inside one of the graves. I made my way down into a pit where there was a miniature stone construction that resembled a house with an apexed roof. I then crawled in feet first and took photos of the wall paintings while laying in the same position as its original occupant.
What fantastic archaeology the have here, much better than the dark line ditch stuff we have in the UK. We said our good byes and arrange d to meet back at the museum later in the week.
Steve then took us to an old gravel pit, now flooded and landscaped into a park. We put on our dry suit and started searching for coins and jewelry. The later didn't materialize, but we did find enough money to buy 11 pints of beer... 67 Kuna which is about £7.00.
After the beer we had a good meal before returning to our hotel for more drinks... I could get used to this!
So that's my first experience of detecting in Croatia. Be sure to come back again next week to read the third part of my blog series.
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