In January 1942, a hired plowman named Gordon Butcher plowed a field in West Row, a sleepy village near Mildenhall in Suffolk, England. It was the middle of World War 2, and no one was out looking for treasure. But then his plow struck something metallic and hard in the ground, and he drew up a piece of ancient silver, then another, and another. What came out of that cold field that day was to be one of the most extraordinary Roman discoveries ever made in Britain.
Most people today have not heard of the Mildenhall treasure, but they should. It’s one of those rare stories where an unplanned moment opened up a whole different view of the ancient world.
