Buried groups of coins and precious metal, hidden for safekeeping and never reclaimed.
In 1896 two ploughmen near Limavady turned up a hoard of Iron Age gold, including a miniature boat complete with oars. A famous court case in 1903 decided it was treasure trove, and it went to Dublin.
In 1919 archaeologists digging a hillfort in East Lothian found more than 20 kilograms of late Roman silver, deliberately cut and crushed into pieces. It is the largest hoard of Roman hacksilver ever found.
In 1999 archaeologists on a Gotland farm found 67 kilograms of Viking silver, more than 14,000 coins and nearly 500 arm-rings, hidden beneath the floor of a storehouse. It is the largest Viking silver hoard ever found.
In 1975 a ploughed field at Water Newton, on the site of a Roman town near Peterborough, gave up 28 silver and gold objects marked with Christian symbols, the earliest known Christian church silver from anywhere in the Roman Empire.
In 1979 a detectorist dug up a late Roman hoard of gold jewellery and silver spoons on a Thetford building site, and didn't report it. By the time archaeologists heard, the findspot had been built over.
In 1966 a mechanical digger on a building site at Ravenshead in Nottinghamshire turned up 1,237 gold coins and pieces of jewellery, hidden during the Wars of the Roses. It is the largest hoard of medieval coins ever found in Britain.
In November 2013 a detectorist in east Devon found a hoard of 22,888 Roman coins, reported it at once and helped archaeologists dig it out. Its first coin became the one-millionth find recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
In 2015 a detectorist near Watlington in Oxfordshire found a Viking hoard of about 200 silver coins, ingots and jewellery. Its rare Two Emperors pennies show Alfred the Great sharing power with a Mercian king history almost forgot.
