Digging in the Rain

Strangely, well for me anyway, I have heard many times from detectorists located in some parts of England that they hate the rain and most certainly won’t choose to go digging in it. Some even say it puts them off detecting altogether when they are ‘forced’ to dig in wet weather.

Unfortunately, if most of us in Scotland actively chose not to go out digging in the rain, then it is safe to say that we would have a mere handful digging days per year. Besides, our main machine is the incredible, fully water (and Scottish weather) proof CTX 3030 with the CTX 17 inch coil – without question the greatest all round, all weather machine ever produced.

It is on one of these glorious ‘Scottish summer’ wet weekends that my axe hoard tale begins.

The Friday arrived when we drove into the ancient and mysterious lands of Argyllshire, for the Detecting Scotland club annual rally. The journey up was uneventful and we soon arrived at the rally site, the historic Ardkinglas Estate, situated on the banks of Loch Fyne in Argyll.

Sharon and I had reviewed the weather reports for the weekend and decided not to camp and chose to stay in a local tavern instead. That night we were both awakened several times by the howling wind and lashing rain hammering against the tavern windows and we thanked our lucky stars that we had wisely chosen not to camp.

We arrived at the estate early next morning and were met with a sight that would not be out of place on the set of a post apocalypse zombie movie. The main administrative area was littered with parts of tent and tree branches and rather damp and soggy detectorists were milling about everywhere. We surmised correctly that the storm had hit the camping area hard. There were many sad tales and most of the tents had been flooded to some extent. We even heard that one poor guy had his inner tent blown into the loch or surrounding woodlands and had to sleep within the outer skin of his tent, wrapped up like a burrito on the grass.

An archaeologist from the Treasure Trove Unit had also arrived and set up the finds table under the only small marquee available. This marquee proved to be the most popular area during the Saturday, mainly because it was the only shelter to be found at the site.

Unfortunately, as a result of the horrendous weather and tent flooding, a good portion of the attendees left at lunchtime on the Saturday; soaked, cold and miserable. For those brave enough to endure the continuing weather, a small collection of finds started to trickle into the archaeologist’s marquee.

Sharon and I had spent the morning slowly going over the area near the main house, but it was very quiet, as we had nothing much to show for around 3 hours detecting in the mud, wind and rain. Word arrived of productive fields located further down the loch, albeit the finds were mainly from the WWII era, but it sounded like fun digging. So, it was decided that after lunch we would indeed head to the more productive area.

Several more hours in the rain passed and we had a great time digging loads of WWII artefacts, which included mortar tailfins, which give an absolutely booming signal, .303 cartridges, military buttons and WWII era coinage. During that afternoon, we also heard that a couple of medieval coins were discovered, one being found in the next field over.

As it was nearing the end of the detecting day, I decided to try my luck in the other field where one of the medieval silver coins had been found. I contacted Sharon on the walkie-talkie and told her I was leaving the field and moving to the adjacent one, she responded saying that she would follow me there.

I stood at the field gate and looked over the pasture, knowing my time was fairly limited. There was a creek bordering the right hand edge and the field sloped up gently before plateauing and then continuing upwards towards the nearby forested hill. I decided to move right and track the creek up the right hand edge of the field. At around 30 yards into my search, I passed over one, then another, large booming signals. I focussed in on the nearest signal and pinpointed it accurately with my Minelab CTX 3030, which screamed at me – this generally indicates a large shallow target such as a soda can, or in most of the occasions that day, a WWII mortar tailfin.

As I dug out the turf clod I fully expected to find another WWII mortar tailfin, but when the clod came out the target was unusually still buried in the hole. I switched on my Minelab PRO-FIND 25 probe and pushed it into the hole, it screamed at me, indicating that a large target was still there, albeit deeper. So, I pushed my spade into the edge of the hole and proceeded to lift out another large clod of dirt, which I placed at the side of the hole.

As I stood there looking at this new dirt clod in the torrential rain, the soil started to run off it and I thought I could see the green colour of old bronze appearing through the muddy soil. I knelt down and saw the unmistakable outline of an axe head’s crescent shaped blade. I was stunned, just kneeling there in the rain staring at what was now obviously a 4,000 year old Early Bronze Age flat axe head. I immediately got on the walkie-talkie and contacted Sharon and asked her to come over. I then carefully picked the axe head up and refilled the hole, checking there were no more targets in it. The feeling of picking up such a wonderful ancient artefact and holding it in your hands is just incredible and one that I hope you will all get to experience one day.

It was at that very moment that I remembered the second signal that I had heard…surely not I thought. I moved over to the area of the second signal and heard the resounding boom, marked the spot and then completed a quick sweep around it. No less than half a yard from the second 

signal, a third boomed into my headphones. Smiling and absolutely bursting with excitement, I decided that I would cut out the turf from around the second target and see if indeed I had hit a hoard. With the turf square carefully cut out, I got onto my knees and slowly pulled it up, taking care not to disturb the hole as much as I could. When the clod was lifted free, I could clearly see the second axe head lying undisturbed in the hole. It appeared to be bigger in size when compared to the first one I had just found. At this point Sharon arrived to give me a hug and to share in the discovery.

I got back on the walkie-talkie, declared the hoard and asked if the archaeologist would come down to the site to excavate and record the hoard. Word had quickly spread and a steady stream of detectorists turned up to have a look at the axe heads lying in the hole. We had also cordoned off the hoard area and it was out of bounds to any more detecting until the archaeologist came down.

As the weather was getting even worse, the archaeologist quickly and carefully removed the third axe head from its long forgotten resting place and we gave the area one final scan before leaving for the evening. We completed this task confident in the knowledge that if the CTX 3030 did not hear a target, then there wasn’t one there – simple. It was also decided that the discovery site recording could wait until the following morning.

When we arrived back at the main camp, we heard that a band were playing in the local tavern and everyone decided to go there and celebrate. You will be happy to hear that a great night was had by all, with lots of merriment and some nice congratulations coming my way…and for sure, everyone was destined for headaches in the morning.

The next day, the axe head hoard was safely transported back to the National Museum of Scotland and has entered the Treasure Trove process, which is the legal process for important artefacts discovered in Scotland, precious metal or not. Unfortunately, further study of them will have to wait until they are dried out, stabilised and offered to museums for their collections and I can update you of any progress sometime in the future.

As for me…well as you can imagine, I’m just happy to be digging in the rain and will continue to do so!

Catch you all next time for more detecting adventures from the wilds of Scotland – slàinte!