aldissandmore

I’m not a historian or an archaeologist but like alot of other people (1000 people queued to get into the Birmingham museum on Friday afternoon according to the Times!) I’m finding the stories coming out around the treasure trove, that has been found by a chap with a metal detector in a Staffordshire field, amazing!

The most amazing thing that’s been unearthed however is that of how little we know of this period in history (OK it was a long time ago) and one can’t help but wonder what other assumptions we may have made in the past, and have formed the basis of the history that we teach at school, are wrong.

It doesn’t bother me – I was rubbish at history. To me it was a test of memory for something of which I had little perspective of at the time – but we’re talking about the Dark Ages here, the 7th to 9th century – that’s 900 years after the birth of Christianity. It makes me wonder how much of the bible is fiction.

The most interesting change in perspective to my mind is the fact that this trawl of booty (it has been identified as the spoils of battle) features gem stones that originate from Sri Lanka. Until the weekend we had no idea that there was international trade at the point in history. The impact of that on the history books is just going to be immense, and will no doubt take so much time to sink in.

That’s the last post on history you’re likely to see on the blog!