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FOR five days last July, unemployed amateur treasure hunter Terry Herbert roamed a farm belonging to a friend in Staffordshire with a 14-year-old metal detector he bought at a car boot sale. Fifteen hundred pieces of gold, silver and other artefacts later, and Herbert had uncovered one of the most important archaeological discoveries of modern times. “Imagine you’re at home and somebody keeps putting money through your letterbox, that’s what it was like,” Herbert said after the find, writes BRIAN O'CONNELL

Herbert, who lives alone in a council flat and is on disability benefit, looks set to share in an estimated £2 million (€2.2 million) windfall, which he will split with the farmer in whose field he found the treasure. Meanwhile, thousands of people queued at the Birmingham Museum and Art gallery at the weekend to catch a glimpse of the treasure. Archaeologist Roger Bland, who oversaw the extraction of the find from its location, said, “This is just a fantastic find, completely out of the blue. It will make us rethink the dark ages.”