UK Knowledge Thieves Lose their Coin Haul

Haul seekers
 anonymous

A haul of coins of Alfred the Great of Wessex and Ceolwulf II of Mercia roughly contemporary with the Watlington Hoard has been recovered by police action ('Viking coin haul 'of historical significance'... BBC 30th May 2019):

Viking coins estimated to be worth at least £500,000 and "of major historical significance" have been recovered by police. The large number of coins and silver ingot were seized from properties in County Durham and Lancashire. Durham Police said "a number of people have been arrested" on suspicion of dealing in culturally tainted objects. It declined to confirm how many people were arrested or how they allegedly came to be in possession of the items. [...] The coins and ingot were handed over to the museum after being seized earlier this month.

Hmm. Basically, there are two ways you could find Viking coins, either they could drop out of the sky into your lap from a passing time-warping UFO, or you go metal detecting. I'm going to presume that this time the latter was the context of discovery. Crooked metal detectorists are in the news again (see next Sunday's posts here). The BBC narrativises the Durham Heist in a Kings and Battles framework:

King Alfred inflicted a defeat on the Vikings in AD 878, and experts believe the coins belong to an undeclared hoard consistent with the location of the Viking army at that time. [...] "This is the period in which Alfred the Great was fighting the Vikings, but which also led to the creation of a unified kingdom of England under Alfred and his successors." Det Insp Lee Gosling, of Durham Police, said: "It is not every day we get the chance to shape British history.

But it is gratifying to see how frequently metal detector finds are now being described in the British media with the pejorative term 'haul'. Good.