It’s every child’s dream to discover buried treasure, and that is exactly what happened to little James Hyatt one day when his father took him metal detecting for the first time.
His granddad had been searching for fifteen years, but James was lucky enough to find something in only five minutes.
His dad, Jason Hyatt, couldn’t believe it – he’d never found anything like this in all of his years searching.
James was so thrilled with his discovery, although he wasn’t old enough yet to understand its true importance.
“It went beep beep beep,” the three-year-old recounted about the experience.
After they heard the sound coming from eight inches down, they cautiously pulled out a shiny object.
Jason started digging and dug up an ancient gold reliquary encrusted with names of Magi and images of Jesus Christ and Saint Helena – 500 years old.
Little James even commented on its origin: “We didn’t have a map – only pirates have Treasure Maps!”
According to The Guardian, James had discovered a 500-year-old gold relic known as a reliquary which would once have been drenched in color due to enamel work filling in the letters and decorations.
It may have originally contained relics of the cross but upon being opened by Marilyn Hockey at the British Museum after conservation work revealed nothing inside except some fibers of flax likely grown locally.
It has since been declared by a coroner’s inquest as ‘treasure’ having an estimated worth of four million dollars yet sadly their reward was only £70,000 from grants given by Art Fund charity and Friends of Museum shared between them and the landowner who owned the property where they found it.
Experts speculate that because of the imagery inscribed into it that it would have probably held pieces from True Cross which Saint Helena recovered during her trip 326–328 AD.
According to legend, she is usually depicted holding onto this cross hence why this pendant created such intrigue when discovered especially given its size being 1 inch wide & 1.3 long making intricate engravings even more remarkable and difficult to create.
When little James Hyatt set off metal detecting with his dad he never expected to find something so unique nor did he understand its significance.
Now the 500 year old piece has become part of the famous British Museum permanent collection thanks to dedicated conservation efforts.
It remains a mystery whether this piece contained the relic True Cross or not but nevertheless this story serves as a reminder: sometimes the greatest treasures lie hidden beneath our feet waiting for those with plenty of courage to dig deep enough to discover them!