Experts say the collection of gold and silver pieces, completely reshape our understanding of the Dark Ages. The find containing almost fifteen hundred gold and silver items thought to date from the 7th or 8th century, staggering archeologists with it’s unparalleled in size and may be worth millions. It has been declared treasure by South Staffordshire meaning it belongs to the Crown. A hoard of this historical importance is a national treasure and therefore will be destined to go into a museum for the benefit of the nation.

The hoard was found on farmland using a metal detector by Terry Herbert, as he searched land belonging to a farmer friend over five days in July. The Staffordshire hoard contains about 5kg of gold and 2.5kg of silver, making it far bigger than the Sutton Hoo discovery in 1939 when 1.5kg of Anglo-Saxon gold was found near Woodbridge in Suffolk.

Scientist are saying this could alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries, and is seen by some to be the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells.

The Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels are intricately illuminated manuscripts of the four New Testament Gospels dating from the 9th and 8th Centuries. So little is known about the period that the artifacts have already led historians to question some of their fundamental beliefs — such as whether Christianity had been embraced by the pagan Saxons much earlier than previously thought. This is possibly evidences by a war cross potentially found at the site.

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