- Rowan Brannan, 12, was walking with mom in Pagham when he saw the band
- The Roman bracelet has since been studied by the British Museum
A boy has discovered a rare gold Roman bracelet in a field where it had lain for 2,000 years.
Rowan Brannan, 12, was walking with mum Amanda, 44, when he spotted the band dating from the first century – 1AD.
Stunned Rowan, from Bognor, Sussex, found the ‘exceptionally rare’ gold treasure while dog walking in the Pagham area.
The Roman armilla-type bracelet has since been studied by the British Museum.
Amanda said: ‘Rowan has always been into finding all kinds of bits and pieces, he is very adventurous and always picking things up off the floor.
A boy has discovered a rare gold Roman bracelet in a field where it had lain for 2,000 years
Rowan Brannan, 12, was walking with mum Amanda, 44, when he spotted the band dating from the first century – 1AD.
‘I keep saying, ‘put it down, it’s dirty’, but on this occasion he continued to hold this piece of metal, convinced it was real gold.
“I thought it was just a piece of fence rope or something, it was very dirty.”
Rowan said: ‘For me it was just normal because I pick up a lot of things that I probably shouldn’t!’
Rowan took the piece home and researched how to determine if it was real gold.
It met all the criteria on the checklist, but the two didn’t realize that Rowan’s lucky find was something more until a hairdresser came to their home.
The hairdresser told Amanda and Rowan that she was going on a metal detecting day, so Rowan told her about the metal he had found.
Intrigued, the hairdresser took a photo of the piece and showed it to the leader of the metal detecting session.
He told the hairdresser that the piece looked old and advised Amanda and Rowan to contact a finds officer.
Amanda said: ‘Until now, nothing in my mind thought it was gold.’
In the Roman Empire, bracelets were usually worn by ladies as a sign of rank. Men did not tend to wear bracelets as they were considered a sign of effeminacy. However, they were publicly awarded to soldiers by a Roman general for acts of extraordinary merit. In this case, the bracelets, also called armilla bracelets, were worn as a badge of honor
The young boy found the incredible gold bracelet while dog walking in the Pagham area
They contacted the Finds Liaison Officer and have since received regular updates on the piece.
Rowan described how the excitement grew in the months following his discovery.
He said: ‘We took it to the jeweler and that got me a bit excited, and when it was sent away and it looked like ‘gold’ it made it even more exciting. Then it came to the treasure process.”
Amanda said: ‘It’s been going on for a long time.
“The Finds Liaison Officer was very interested in the gold so we had to go to Horsham to hand it over because then it is owned by the Crown while it goes through all these different processes.”
Amanda said the piece was analyzed at the British Museum and passed through the Coroner’s Office in a ‘fascinating’ process during which they learned more and more about the bracelet.
She said: ‘It’s very exciting when we read an email and we are kept informed throughout the process.
“The coroner emailed us and said, ‘It was so lovely dealing with Rowan’s darling’.”
Amanda explained: ‘It’s a first century Roman bracelet, armilla type. An armilla bracelet, we understand, was given to Roman soldiers as a sign of respect, courage and service.
‘It’s a portion, it’s not a completely round bracelet. What makes it so valuable is that it is more than 300 years old and is a precious metal.”
After the appraisal process, Rowan was told it was “an exceptionally rare find” for someone who was just out walking.
Amanda added: ‘It was brilliantly fascinating – we learned so many things and it’s really lovely to still be involved – so we can follow its story. It’s like wow – imagine who wore that. We have had a piece of history in our home.’