Quoit-headed pin

Shown here is an incomplete find. It is worked copper-alloy, a little more than 200mm overall and had it been intact it would have had a shaft with a circular loop at one end and a hook at the other. What is it? Could it be a device used for doing something to animals? Or, a gadget used for scraping the innards out of a fish? Or, a domestic implement used for something or other? The final question is: if you had dug it up would you report it or would you place it straight into your scrap box? I’ll wager that most detectorists would hardly give it a second look.

However, Reo Freitas believed it might be something interesting so he reported with the Portable Antiquities Scheme. It was identified as a quoit-headed pin and dated to the Middle Bronze Age (circa 1400-1250 BC). Around 80 examples are known and three of them are featured on the PAS database. Reo must be well chuffed, as he said that this is the oldest thing he has ever found. He would never have known that had he not been savvy enough to get it checked out. And, to top things off, at his detecting club it won the find of the year in the artefact section

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