Artefacts looted by treasure hunter returned

Almost 900 artefacts illegally looted by a treasure hunter with a metal detector have been recovered, it emerged last night.

The collection was illegally amassed by a British man living in Co Tipperary who worked with an associate in Norfolk, England, to pass the goods on. The treasure hunter died in May 2012.

The pieces, including a Bronze Age axe and hundreds of medieval coins, will go on display today before being stored for research.

The items were recovered following a tip-off from the British Museum last year, when an important hoard of medieval silver coins had been exported illegally to Britain.

Seamus Lynam, acting director of the National Museum of Ireland, said the recovery underlines the continuing threat posed to Ireland’s archaeological heritage by metal detectorists.

“Many items similar to those recovered have been offered for sale in recent times over the internet and are the subject of ongoing investigations,” he said.

Norfolk police officers found a flat copper axe dating to the Early Bronze Age from 2500BC–2000BC, a hoard of 28 medieval hammered silver coins covering the reigns of Edward I-III (1272-1377), and three ‘gun money’ coins, the emergency money coined by James II during the 1689-91 war.

When the alarm was raised, the dead man’s wife willingly handed over the finds to the art and antiques unit of the garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

The presence of medieval objects suggest sites such as castles and medieval churches may have been targeted, while the presence of Georgian and Victorian items suggests the targeting of local estate houses, the museum said.

No value has been put on the collection, but the most rare coins could be worth thousands of euro each.

Treasure hunters need a licence to search and are obliged by law to report any finds or face up to five years in jail and a €63,500 fine.