PAS day

I have been volunteering for the Portable Antiquities Scheme for the last few weeks. This scheme was set up in the UK so that people could take artefacts to a professional Finds Liaison Officer based at local town councils. FLOs work mainly with metal detecting clubs recording finds from their meetings, but also individuals. I wanted to fill gaps in my knowledge regarding metal finds and coins, the sort of things that come up rarely on archaeological sites.

Today I was working on Roman coins, such as this 4th century numus example of Valentinian (364-378 AD):

Then it was forward in time to this silver half groat:

The obverse has the shield of St George within a palm and laurel and the reverse is co-joined shields, St George with that of Ireland.

But it is not all coins. This example of a little dress fastener is very similar to the one I was working on (1550-1650):

  

Sadly I will have to miss out for a couple of months at least to work in the field, but I will look forward to helping the PAS once more in the autumn.