ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Charlie Clarke had solely been metallic detecting for six months when he discovered buried treasure in 2019.

CHARLIE CLARKE: I simply misplaced a canine, which was a very good companion of mine. A pal of mine requested me if we needed to exit, do a little bit of metallic detecting within the subject, get a little bit of recent air.

SHAPIRO: After hours of turning up scrap metallic in a subject in Warwickshire, England, Clarke’s metallic detector beeped once more. So he dug within the rain till he was elbow-deep within the floor and pulled out a big gold necklace with a heart-shaped pendant.

CLARKE: Abruptly, the climate would not matter. You already know, it is – your adrenaline is thru the roof. You are excited to see – simply the colour in gold simply adjustments all the things.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

The 34-year-old cafe proprietor knew he had discovered one thing particular. But it surely wasn’t till he met with somebody from the British Museum that he realized simply how necessary it was.

CLARKE: After I first handed it to her, her response stated all of it. Her jaw dropped. You could possibly see it in her eyes. She was shaking holding it.

CHANG: The British Museum introduced the invention of the necklace in late January, and it seems it is over 500 years previous and inscribed with the letters H and Ok for King Henry VIII and his first spouse, Katherine of Aragon.

SHAPIRO: Rachel King is the British Museum’s curator of Renaissance Europe, and she or he says she was in disbelief the primary time she noticed it in individual.

RACHEL KING: Even in my wildest desires, I might by no means have imagined one thing like this. It is so remarkable, one thing so beautiful.

CHANG: Properly, beautiful and enormous.

KING: It is a huge piece of glitz, as one would say.

CHANG: The necklace’s chain is made up of 75 gold hyperlinks and weighs greater than half a pound. The center-shaped pendant is about two inches throughout, and it is embellished with an intertwined red-and-white Tudor rose and a pomegranate symbolizing King Henry VIII’s marriage to Katherine.

KING: They usually’re extra than simply intertwined. They develop from the identical bough. It is a reference to the second they’ve their first little one.

SHAPIRO: Now, the necklace shall be valued. Clarke and the landowner will ultimately break up the reward. And Clarke – properly, he is hooked on the passion.

CLARKE: As a toddler, you all the time wish to discover treasure. Do not you? And, I imply, you are doing precisely that. You are discovering treasure. The truth that it is modified historical past, it is of nationwide significance – you by no means know the place this passion can take you.

CHANG: So to any aspiring metallic detectorists on the market, Charlie Clarke says, get on the market. You could not discover a historic artifact, however on the very least, you will get some recent air.

(SOUNDBITE OF ANDERSON .PAAK SONG, “TWILIGHT”)

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