Is This Ancient Roman Bust Marcus Aurelius? | Our History

For over 250 years, the British Museum has been home to some of the most remarkable objects ever created by mankind. These artifacts come from right across the globe, but some of the most extraordinary have been found in Britain's fields, gardens, rivers by you, the British public. I've been working with a panel of experts sifting through close on a million of your amazing finds, and all this week we're counting down our top 50. Tonight, some 3,000-year-old jewellery tells of Milton Keynes' glittering past. I mean, that is just a serious lump of gold. A stunning Roman cup. The detail is incredible. And the man who found 52,000 coins. We start at number 26. The tale of murder, mystery and mud. Buttons, brooches, buckles, ordinary things belonging to ordinary people always have a secret story to reveal. So when I found out that a stash of these medieval badges were found here in Canterbury, I couldn't wait to find out what story they had to tell. In 1987, antiques dealer Ian Smith found these 600-year-old badges with his friend Roy Davis in the River Stour in Canterbury. Ian's hobby is scouring riverbanks for old objects, using a sieve to filter out his finds from the mud. Very romantic, Ian. Oh yeah, it's like Venice. Archaeology isn't quite so Venetian most of the time. Tell me how you found these badges. We'd come down the same set of steps, funnily enough, where we got on the punt. Weighed all along the river here, and we work as a pair, so one guy would be holding the sieve and then I'd be shoveling a little bit of gravel off the bed into the sieve. And then if you were lucky there might be something in there, or if not, there wasn't. So how many badges did you find? Oh, dozens of badges in the end, dozens of them. So these little artefacts, they've been sitting in river mud until you get a hold of them in your sieve. That's right. You know, it's laid there for 500 years, and you're the first person to have handled that, and the last guy was some medieval, you know, miller or peasant or whatever. It's kind of pretty special really. Badges back then were worn in the same way as they are today, to support a cause or show unity. The majority of these badges had one man's face on them, St Thomas Beckett. But why? Way back in 1161, Thomas of Beckett was made Archbishop of Canterbury by his best mate King Henry II, making him the most important person in the whole of England, other than the king himself. But as soon as Thomas got that job, he seemed to delight in putting the king's back up, until eventually, in frustration, the king shouted to his court, Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest? Four of Henry's knights took him at his word, and set out to silence Beckett once and for all. Witnesses saw the four knights chase Beckett into this corner of the cathedral. One of them drew his sword and sliced at Beckett, cutting off the top of his skull. The others laid in, and Beckett fell, his brains and his blood staining the cathedral floor. They had killed the most powerful bishop in the country. Three years later, the Pope made him a saint, and Canterbury Cathedral became Europe's hottest pilgrimage site. On their way into the cathedral, the pilgrims would buy these small metal souvenir badges, and then this is where they would bring them. The candle marks the site where Beckett's shrine once stood, and then they would reach inside the tomb, hoping that some of his power would come to them. They were hoping that Thomas Beckett, now Saint Thomas, would perform a miracle for them. Once you had finished praying in the cathedral, many thought your pilgrim's badge could bring you even more luck if you threw it in the river. You can still buy pilgrim badges in So 600 years ago, a pilgrim may have stood here with her pilgrim badge, just like the replica I bought. Her pilgrimage over, and in the hopes of a safe journey home, she may have kissed the badge and thrown it into the river. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. Let's hope it brings Marianne luck too. Luck was certainly on the side of our next finder. It's not often you get a world first. But in 2010, retired chef Dave Crisp was wandering in a field in Froome in Somerset, when he came across something quite remarkable. The largest collection of Roman coins in a single container ever found. In fact, more than 52,000 coins. How did you feel when you first started to see the real amount of coin there was coming out of the ground? I sat back on my heels and I went, and I looked around, I've done it! I've found a hoard! It's really exciting just to find one coin, but you're multiplying that by 52,000. I am the finder of the single largest pot of Roman coins ever. And that will be with me forever. Unless of course, someone finds a bigger pot of coins, which they might do, you never know. The Museum of Somerset acquired the coins, paying Dave and the landowner the princely sum of 320,000. But two years after this extraordinary discovery, they are still being cleaned. Dave Crisp's pot of Roman coins was possibly an early form of corporate banking. At number 24, Brian Blessed is going on the trail of one of Rome's most influential emperors. In 1976, John Lewis was ploughing up a field near Brackley, Northamptonshire, when he came across something extraordinary, a stunning Roman bust. In my earliest years, I played Augustus Caesar in a marvellous series called I, Claudius. It gave me a great appetite for Roman history. If I found a Roman bust, I'd be bowled over and have it in pride of place in my living room. So where did John and his wife, Joan, keep it? You actually put this bust under the stairs? Yes, I put it in a cupboard under the stairs. And then one day I fetched it out, and I thought, well, that would do as an ornament in the hearth. Extraordinary. So blue eyes, as he was known to us, you've got lovely blue eyes. Yeah. And it just sat there for years, years and years. What, you've got no idea what you discovered? No idea whatsoever what it was. Eventually, they took it to a British Museum Fines Day event and were staggered to discover that old blue eyes was no ordinary bust. The experts knew he must be Roman, but who was he? I want to have a look at him for myself. So I've come to the Ashmolean Museum, where the bust now lives. My goodness. I just put one hand under him there. Look at those sapphire eyes. I'm sure it's an emperor. Look at his beard, it's stylized, not like mine. But who is it? I mean, that's the $50 million question. Who is it? Yeah, indeed. The experts at the Ashmolean had a very simple way of finding out. They looked at some Roman coins from the time. That's Beardless. That's Beardless. And there, there. There he is. That's him. There he is, there he is. That's him, isn't it? That looks exactly like the bust. So who is that? That's Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius. It is him, it's completely him. It's utterly the same chap. Marcus Aurelius was one of the Roman Empire's greatest emperors. He ruled from 161 to 180 AD and was an impressive military commander, successfully leading his men against the Germanic tribes. But there was one big difference between the bust of Marcus Aurelius and the coin. For some reason, the beard on the bust has twisted tufts, whereas the beard on the coin is rather less fancy, like mine. Well, look, here I am. This is the beard and this is how he looked. Those wonderful little conical tufts are not Roman. They're very British. And what's really interesting about this head is that it's a British take on a Roman emperor. So we can recognise the head straight away as Marcus Aurelius and match it to portraits that are made in Rome, but it was almost certainly made in Britain. To achieve these twisted tufts back then, they would have used animal fat, but thankfully my hairdresser is using wax. Now here we go ladies, now tell me, in all honesty, do I look like a Roman emperor? Not bad. Finding out the identity of old blue eyes, Marcus Aurelius, has been a real voyage of discovery. I've loved it and it's brought history to life for me. I mean, to hold his face like that, absolutely miraculous. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to getting all this grease off my beard. Bizarre that John and Joan put poor old Marcus Aurelius in the back of a cupboard. Maybe there's something unusual that you found and just shoved into the back of a drawer. If so, go to itv.com forward slash treasure. Now our next item comes from a time when us British were at one another's throats. It was a very dark age in the 1600s when civil war was tearing this nation apart. In 2009, in Nether Stowey in Somerset, pensioner Arthur Haig was helping a young girl look for a when he came across some extraordinary treasure. The Nether Stowey hoard is solid silver, a goblet, spoons and a bell salt. Somerset Museum acquired the collection for £38,000. The hoard's been dated to the English Civil War, which broke out in 1642. The country fought for nine long years over whether it should be ruled by king or parliament. There was mob rule. Looting was rife. I imagine this hoard was buried in the ground to stop looters from pinching it. However, its owner may well have met a sticky end as they never returned to dig it up. The Nether Stowey hoard is a fine example of Civil War silver, which reminds us that Britain is no stranger to internal turmoil. From pilgrim badges to pots of Roman coins, each of the 50 objects on our list offers a window onto our history. And there's plenty more to come. A Viking object with a secret magic message, one of the largest stashes of solid gold ever found, and a drinking cup of exquisite beauty. All this week we've been counting down the top 50 artefacts discovered by the public. Discoveries that are rewriting our history and there is still time for you to be involved. There certainly is, and if you've found something you think will interest the British Museum, go to itv.com forward slash treasure to register. We'll be revealing the best new items on Sunday night. When you talk about finding a pot of gold, that's usually the stuff of fairy tales. But in September 2000, two electrical engineers, Michael Rutland and Gordon Heritage, did exactly that. It wasn't at the end of a rainbow, it was actually in a field in Milton Keynes, and this is it. It is incredibly precious and it's also at least 3,000 years old. The Milton Keynes hoard boasts two beautiful chunky gold neck ornaments and three gold bracelets. They make up one of the biggest collections of gold ever found from Bronze Age Britain. Gordon has come here to the basements of the British Museum to tell me about the moment that he found it. Gordon, thank you for coming in. My gold. That was a pretty good day's work. It was, yeah. It's one of those highlights of your life. It's certainly an amazing find. And I'll tell you what really strikes me is just how heavy it is. This one's over 200 grams, so it is unbelievably heavy. I mean, how could anybody wear that as a bracelet? Your arm would fall off at the end of the day. And that Bronze Age Britain would have been showing off some serious wealth. Despite the fact that this jewellery must have been incredibly uncomfortable to wear, the owner was determined to display their riches to the world. People talk about finding a pot of gold and you've done it. Yeah, find of a lifetime. The British Museum thought they were so fabulous that they acquired the jewellery for £290,000. Gold is how we imagine treasure, but historical treasures don't have to be about bling. One thousand years ago, there was one surefire way to make money in Britain and that was from wool. To make wool, women would draw threads out from a fleece using a stick, at the end of which there was a small lead weight, known as a spindle wool. Industrial archaeologist Claire Barrett is on the trail of a mystery spindle wool that may hold a magical secret. Sometimes it's the little things that can be the most magical and I've been promised that there's magic in this little lump of lead. Most spindle wools were plain, but the one I'm going to see, found by Denise Moncaster, is rather different and extremely rare. What do you know about spindle wools? I've never found one with runes on them. With runes? What are the... That's all these little markings, they look like stick figures. They do, they do. I mean at the moment it could just be a bad pattern, but they're actually letters? Yes. Can you read runes? No. I think I need to know what it says. Runes are a special type of ancient writing and may have been used by Viking women to weave people's fate into wool. So what kind of fate was this woman weaving? John Hynes from Cardiff University is an expert on reading runes. I know what it is, but I don't know what it says. Okay, well going around the site here we can read the names of three individuals, three gods in fact. Odin, Och Him, Dattler, Och Thalva. What do those names mean to you? Well they're immediately identifiable as names that come to us out of the mythology of the Vikings. Round the bottom what it's saying is they help you. So why would a woman have had such an object? This particular woman wanted to be associated with a wish for the good fortune of the men who appear to be named on the bottom of the spindle whorl. So she's trying to protect her family? That is the obvious inference to take out. So it's a prayer, it's casting a spell, it's a magic item. Yeah absolutely so. This little spindle whorl is so high on the list because it is unique and it demonstrates an instinct we can all relate to, love and protection for your children. While the spindle whorl is a tiny object that tells us a lot, our next treasure is a vast array of impressive objects that reveal an entirely new religious site. In 2011 a metal detectorist who wishes to remain anonymous unearthed a bronze age spearhead. He was pretty sure there was a lot more beneath the surface, so he did the right thing and immediately alerted archaeologists who began to dig. What they uncovered was extraordinary. A collection of over a hundred axe heads, chisels, knives and other weapons. And what was even more exciting is that this discovery seems to span a thousand years of human history. Experts believe it was some kind of religious site. Bronze Age people offered their spears to the gods and a thousand years later the Romans were still making offerings. The Tisbury hoard is still being evaluated here at the museum. A find that connects people in the same act of spirituality over millennia is very special and more than deserves its place on the list. At number 19 is an ancient cup that is an exquisite work of art and really staggeringly beautiful. It was in an ordinary field in my home country of Wales, just outside Abergavenny, where finder Gary Mapp unearthed our next item. It's incredibly rare, extremely valuable and over two thousand years old. I've come to the National Museum Wales in Cardiff for a closer look. So here it is. It is indeed. The leopard cup. I was nervous for you walking towards me then. That's fantastic. Well, the detail is incredible, isn't it? This is the magnificent leopard cup. The cap is made from leaded bronze and the leopard's spots were inlaid with silver, whilst his eyes were probably made from amber. Imagine pulling this out of the ground. Who would have made a piece like this? Well, I think a very skilled artisan, probably based in Italy. The leopard itself is a draft beast of the god Bacchus, the god of wine, and they're often associated with wine and with drinking. What can you tell us about the owner of the cup? It came in with a Roman general or somebody of quite high status. It was found in an area where there is a cemetery outside what's modern Abergavenny, a Roman cemetery, so we believe it was buried with somebody who took it with him to the afterlife, if you like. So they loved it so much and it was so important to the person who owned it, they wanted it to be buried with them. Yes. What an amazing thing to take to the afterlife. The leopard cup is high on the list because it's simply so beautiful, so unusual and so well preserved. That's it for today but the countdown continues tomorrow. We investigate the secrets of an elaborate gold ring. The detail is absolutely amazing. We go behind the scenes of the British Museum to reveal one of the largest Viking hoards ever found and we uncover the astonishing legacy of the Bronze Age. It's older than the Tutankhamun. It's older than Moses.