Ancient gold ring bought off detectorist now worth £30k

A CELTIC chieftain’s 2,000-year-old gold ring is expected to sell at auction for up to £30,000 after being kept in a cupboard for 28 years.

Its current owner bought the artefact for just a few hundred pounds in the 1990s after it was unearthed by a metal detectorist in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire.

The 66-year-old, who has chosen to remain anonymous, only decided to get it valued after worrying about his children having to decide what to do with it when he passes away.

He told the BBC: “It’s jaw-dropping. It’s really quite a mysterious thing. I’m in my 60s, I don’t know how long I’ll be around. I thought it really wanted a good home so my children don’t have to figure out what to do with it.”

A first-century BC chief of the Corieltauvi tribe is thought to have symbolised his power by wearing the artefact with torc rings around his neck and arms.

The Corieltauvi held sway over vast tracts of the Midlands and Yorkshire at a time when Britain was divided into a patchwork of tribal chiefdoms. Jewellery is widely understood by historians to have been a pivotal way in which highprofile Celts displayed their influence. Artisans are believed to have created the ring by hammering sheet gold into shape before meticulously crafting a three-leaf clover in the centre of an oval bezel.

Its style is similar to a hoard of torcs and armbands found in Norfolk in 1948 that are believed to have belonged to the royal treasury of East Anglia’s Iceni tribe. The ring is the only one of its kind to have survived, and auctioneers Noonans said its artistic quality was unmatched by any contemporaneous continental example.

Nigel Mills, an ancient jewellery specialist, said: “There is no other ring of this style which exists. It is an incredibly important piece. It is the most exciting ring I have had the pleasure of examining. It is not until 1,000 years later that the Vikings created similar pieces.” The ring precedes Julius Caesar’s two attempts in the mid-50s BC to invade Britain. It would take another century before emperor Claudius began a third invasion that led to the establishment of the Roman province of Britannia.