Unexpected Find

Even for just a couple of pounds from a second-hand bookshop in Cranborne on a wet morning I wasn't sure about this book. A tie-in with a TV series: it didn't necessarily bode well but I thought I might get something out of it. 

I never saw the original TV series, looking at archaeological finds uncovered by members of the public and which have, with a few extreme exceptions, now found their way into museum collections. Perhaps that was just as well, as thinking about it I now have nightmarish images in my mind of reconstructions of a chap sweeping a metal detector over a damp field in Leicestershire  (low-level camera angles, perhaps, or maybe a camera actually swooping from one view to another) while dramatic music plays in the background and Bettany Hughes says things like 'Brian never expected what would happen next'. Well, obviously he didn't. Anyway, I escaped anything like that, and in fact the book is rather fun. It assumes no knowledge at all, but somehow manages to do this without being irritating and is written with a level understatement which is most welcome. No matter how interesting the subject, the wrong treatment would have ruined it, but far from it: instead the charisma of the artefacts, whether grand (and you get the Crosby Garrett Roman cavalry helmet, which is certainly that) or commonplace, and the human detail not just of the stories they embody but those of their discovery, shine through. Thankfully, it's all about the stuff, and the people the stuff represents.