11-Year-Old Finds 3,000-Year-Old Gold In Remarkable Discovery | Great British History Hunters

Eleven-year-old Patrick Hooper is the youngest member of his local Hampshire detecting club, the Soil Searchers. Who's going to be the first to find the first signals? Probably you. Probably. As is usual, Dad Andy's in tow. And today, the group have permission from the landowner to detect on a field near Andover. Wow, look at, yeah, that's... Oh wow, this one's a Georgia First. Is that a Georgia First? Yeah, yeah. Halfpenny. Wow, nice. Paddy's young brain is a sponge for historical facts, doing Dad Andy proud. To have my child so absorbed in a hobby, it's great. He's not in front of a screen, he's finding interesting things, he's out in the fresh air. Yeah, let me flick it out. Ooh, that could be a coin. Go on then. Please. First hole. Come on. There's no way. What is it? Go on. It's a full crotal bell. First hole. From the Middle Ages, crotal bells were fastened to animals to keep track of livestock and warn of approaching horse-drawn vehicles. So how old do you think that is, Paddy? Oh, I can't remember. It's to do with this little, you know, the top bit, but I reckon 1800s. Back home in Fleet, Paddy shares his passion with the world. On his own Paddy Detects YouTube channel. Hey, everyone. I'm out digging. Cool sound. Check that out. Look how big that musty bull is. I love metal detecting because you can find something, like a Roman coin. The last person that touched that was about 1700 years ago, so were they an emperor, were they just a peasant, a farmer? What were they doing? How did they lose that coin? Because that coin might have been a really quite expensive one. Though his detecting career has been short, Patrick's developed something of a Midas touch. It's a gold coin. And in 2020, he became one of the youngest ever finders of treasure. This, everybody, may not seem like much, but we think that is Bronze Age gold. That is mental. I just couldn't believe I found something that old and it's gold. It's so rare. It's truly incredible. As an object suspected to be made of precious metal, and more than three centuries old, Paddy did his legal duty under the Treasure Act and reported the ribbon to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. It's currently being analysed at the British Museum to discover if it does indeed date back 3,000 years to the Bronze Age. If confirmed as treasure, and a museum wishes to acquire it, Patrick could receive a finder's reward. My goal isn't to get rich, I just want to be able to show people what I've discovered. To get it in the museum would be awesome, so I can have, you know, a little case with my name on that I've found that and rescued that piece of history. Today, Finds Liaison Officer Joe Armett is holding a surgery at Nebworth in Hertfordshire. A host of amateur archaeologists from the South East and beyond are bringing their treasured finds for him to examine. I am really looking forward to this. I've got people that have been doing it for 30, 40 years, and I've got people that are just starting out. And for me, it's just fantastic that I can work with these people as part of my job to preserve the country's history. Potential treasure must be reported to a local Finds Liaison Officer, who logs them and advises what happens next. Eleven-year-old Patrick is no stranger to the system. How long did it take you to find a piece of treasure, Paddy? Not long, about a year, maybe a bit less. How long did it take you? It took me 39 years. Whilst Patrick's gold ribbon is under investigation at the British Museum, he's keen to find out more about his newest find. What have you got for me today? I have a crossbow. It still rings. Yeah. Cleaned up. Some of them have maker's marks on. Yeah. What actually does this one do? It's got a letter T on the bottom. Yeah. There's a letter T. Yeah. Just there. So who would that be then? It's difficult because I think there's only one letter on there and there's a lot of bell makers that might be called Thomas or something along those things. These objects were really nice to bring in. I believe you've already got a bit of treasure in the system currently, a lovely little bit of gold. Yeah, so that ended up in my trash. Paddy cast aside this bit of treasure without a second glance, thinking it was a bit of foil. Luckily, a glimmer caught Dad Andy's eye. And it was only when I was cleaning out his bag, I had a little look and thought, oh, that looks interesting. Oh, that's a bright gold thing. I know archaeologists that have done it, I know metal detectorists that have done it. You're not the first. Okay. You can definitely not be the last. I feel it better now. No. I have heard from a British museum. Really? The science team have done some really interesting examination of the gold. I think the treasure team would be delighted to have you along to see what they've discovered. Definitely. That would be cool. Thanks. Yeah, I can't wait. Thank you so much. British museum scientists have been trying to establish whether Patrick's ribbon gold dates back to the Bronze Age, and also whether it officially qualifies as treasure. For Paddy to receive a finder's reward, it must be more than 10% gold. I can't believe that I'm allowed to go up to the British Museum to check out my gold. I really want to find out, you know, where that gold was from, the exact age, it's just going to be so good. Today, the British Museum's scientific research department has invited Patrick up to London to discover more about his ribbon of gold. He's going beyond the galleries and into the museum's labs, where metal scientist Lara Peruchetti has been examining his find. It came out of the soil like this, I think. Yeah, it did. It's beautiful. I know, it's lovely. Using an XRF spectrometer, Lara can reveal just how gold Paddy's gold really is. This X-ray establishes the amount of each element in Paddy's ribbon. To be officially declared treasure and subject to a finder's reward, it needs a precious metal content of at least 10%. And the results are in. Look at how big it is. Gold is so overwhelming that I couldn't see anything else. Wow. So, definitely a lot of gold. This is... Yep. Silver. Really? There's silver in there. Oh, wow. The composition of this object is consistent, like a bronze age. But I'm a little bit, how can I say, surprised by this amount of gold, because it's pretty high, let's say, a little bit higher than what I'm usually seeing. What I would like to do now is looking at it under the microscope. Oh, that would be amazing. And under the digital microscope, we could assess about, like, the kind of damage that it has, but also something about how it has been produced. When magnified by up to 200 times its size, Laura is able to reveal just how delicate the gold is. At less than a millimetre thick, its survival for centuries in the soil, not to mention Paddy's rubbish bag, is remarkable. The detail of that is amazing. I still can't believe I almost threw that in the bin. Ooh, I can see something interesting here. Yeah? Can you see this kind of inclusion in the gold? Yeah. OK. It's indicating that this gold was taken from the river. Gold that are coming from a mine usually doesn't have this kind of inclusion. It's amazing to think someone thousands of years ago went into that, whatever river it was, or lake, and picked out that gold, and now we're studying it thousands of years in the future. It's amazing. Isn't it amazing? Laura's analysis, including the mystery of the surprising amount of gold, will now be studied by the museum's curators as they try to determine who Paddy's ribbon may have belonged to and whether it's definitely Bronze Age. At the British Museum, the scientific data on Patrick Hooper's ribbon gold has been poured over by pre-history curator Dr Jennifer Wexler. Patrick's about to discover if it dates all the way back to the Bronze Age as he hopes. I think it's a good chance that it's at least 3,000 years old, which is pretty amazing. The gold is soft and malleable, making it perfect for shaping into jewellery or decorative ribbon for hair or clothing. There's not a huge amount of personal adornments until this period in the middle of the Bronze Age where we kind of have like an explosion of beautiful personal objects. One of the things they make a lot of is bracelets, and also these little kind of rings they put in their hair. And so that's what we think maybe it fits into that period. Jennifer is helping to curate a new exhibition for the British Museum about Stonehenge, Britain's greatest prehistoric monument, which stands only 20 miles from the ribbon's find site. So do you reckon it was sort of related to Stonehenge, because Stonehenge was really quite close? What we're discovering is that the roots of Stonehenge are much deeper than we expected, which is very, very recent research. And we definitely know people were moving through those landscapes. There is definitely a tradition of people wanting to sort of show their identity and their status in a very particular way. You start thinking whether or not, you know, someone could have been walking towards Stonehenge, you know, wearing this nice gold ribbon and fell off, lost it. So you are connected to that story for sure. Awesome. Wicked. Connected to Stonehenge. Well done that man. Patrick's ribbon gold has been officially declared treasure by the coroner, which means museums have first option to acquire it. So the good news is the Hampshire Cultural Trust has raised money to acquire it for your local museum. Brilliant. So that's really awesome. Well done that man. That's so good. Fantastic. All I need now is my name against it, found by Patrick Cooper, age 10, 11 now, 11 now. That'd be so cool. Over a year ago, Paddy's discovery nearly ended up in the rubbish. Now he knows it's an unusual piece of 3,000 year old ribbon gold, possibly used as hair decoration by worshippers on their way to Stonehenge. The news we've had is that they valued it at £1,000. So I will get £500 of that and then the landowner will get £500 as well, so split it in half. What are you going to spend your £500 on? New chain, definitely. Awesome. Good lad. I can't believe that. I'm really proud of you mate. Thank you.