A Viking hoard of treasure .....two detectorists ..... and a story .... Fool's Gold on the wireless now

 Now it's more than a story of Viking hidden treasure, two detectorists who fail to report the find, and a clue to a period of our history which may change how we see the period of Alfred  the Great.

 Silver penny minted during the reign of Alfred the Great875–880 

So "Fool's Gold" on BBC Radio 4 which spans eight episodes is riveting.

"June 2015, Herefordshire. Two Welsh detectorists - George Powell and Layton Davies - stumble upon a Viking hoard estimated to be worth up to £12m.

They could have become very rich and been celebrated as heroes in museums across the land. But instead, they began to hatch a criminal plot. Narrated by Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Detectorists/Slow Horses), this is the story of how to go from the luckiest treasure hunters on earth, to Newport’s most wanted.

Narrator: Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Contributors: Holly Morgan, Dawn Chipchase & Simon Wicks, Sound design: Peregrine Andrews, Production co-ordinator: Dan Marchini, Additional Research: Holly Morgan, Associate Producer: David James Smith., Producer: Aron Keller, Exec Producer: James Robinson,  A BBC Studios Audio Production."

Location; BBC Radio 4"*

*Fool's Gold, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0kz4ny8

Location BBC Radio 4

 Picture; English: Silver penny minted during the reign of Alfred the Great, struck 875–880 AD, This image has been extracted from another file: Alfred the Great, silver penny; struck 875–880.png original file, Classical Numismatic Group, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following licenses: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU FThis file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. Attribution: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com

The Ghost Kingdoms of England ....... on the wireless

 Now,  I have listened to all four of the programmes.

 Replica of the helmet from the Sutton Hoo 

Together they tell the story of the four old English Kingdoms, of East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex. 

This Union: The Ghost Kingdoms of England was broadcast on Radio 4, and are still available to listen to. 

"With current debate about the stability and durability of the United Kingdom, Ian Hislop felt it was a good time to explore how it was that England, the core of that union, came to be. In this series he tells the story of four great Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, celebrating their golden ages and trying to understand their journey from groupings of assimilated peoples from across the North Sea to powerful kingdoms, and ultimately a single entity.

In spite of a relatively limited written record, it's a period of history that is being constantly re-written, thanks to the impact of new archeological techniques and the rise of the amateur detectorists. Ian hears from authorities on the early medieval period including Michael Wood, Marc Morris, Janina Ramirez and the British Museums curator of Medieval coinage, Gareth Williams, as well as talking to people with local interests in the Anglo-Saxon story.

Sutton Hoo Gold Shoulder Clasp

He's on the look out for ways in which these regional identities have left a mark beyond the occasional use of their names for utility companies or railway services, and he explores the factors that kept the Kingdoms apart but eventually drew them together; common enemies, a unifying language, the church and the residual aspiration to be as the Romans once were.

In today's programme he begins in Colchester, a Roman stronghold which the arriving Angles and Saxons chose to leave alone. But not far up the coast is the place that revolutionised the study of Anglo-Saxon history when it was excavated just before the 2nd World War - Sutton Hoo. Was this the burial of one of the earliest of the great Kings of the Anglo-Saxon period in East Anglia's golden age".

Picture; Photograph by Gernot Keller,2008, of the replica of the helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, produced for the British Museum by the Royal Armouries, I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license, and Sutton Hoo Gold Shoulder Clasp, https://www.flickr.com/people/robroy/ or http://www.roblog.com

*This Union: The Ghost Kingdoms of England, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000ydlb

The Ghost Kingdoms of England ....... on the wireless

This is one to listen to.

 Replica of the helmet from the Sutton Hoo 

It is the first of a series of four on the old English Kingdoms. This Union: The Ghost Kingdoms of England is on Radio 4 and broadcast over for the next three Wednesdays.

"With current debate about the stability and durability of the United Kingdom, Ian Hislop felt it was a good time to explore how it was that England, the core of that union, came to be. In this series he tells the story of four great Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, celebrating their golden ages and trying to understand their journey from groupings of assimilated peoples from across the North Sea to powerful kingdoms, and ultimately a single entity.

In spite of a relatively limited written record, it's a period of history that is being constantly re-written, thanks to the impact of new archeological techniques and the rise of the amateur detectorists. Ian hears from authorities on the early medieval period including Michael Wood, Marc Morris, Janina Ramirez and the British Museums curator of Medieval coinage, Gareth Williams, as well as talking to people with local interests in the Anglo-Saxon story.

Sutton Hoo Gold Shoulder Clasp

He's on the look out for ways in which these regional identities have left a mark beyond the occasional use of their names for utility companies or railway services, and he explores the factors that kept the Kingdoms apart but eventually drew them together; common enemies, a unifying language, the church and the residual aspiration to be as the Romans once were.

In today's programme he begins in Colchester, a Roman stronghold which the arriving Angles and Saxons chose to leave alone. But not far up the coast is the place that revolutionised the study of Anglo-Saxon history when it was excavated just before the 2nd World War - Sutton Hoo. Was this the burial of one of the earliest of the great Kings of the Anglo-Saxon period in East Anglia's golden age".

Picture; Photograph by Gernot Keller,2008, of the replica of the helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, produced for the British Museum by the Royal Armouries, I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license, and Sutton Hoo Gold Shoulder Clasp, https://www.flickr.com/people/robroy/ or http://www.roblog.com

*This Union: The Ghost Kingdoms of England, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000ydlb