Britain's Secret Treasures
Britain's Secret Treasures is a British documentary shown on ITV hosted by Michael Buerk and Bettany Hughes. The programme features fifty archaeological discoveries that have been made in England, Wales and Scotland by members of the public. With the exception of a single find made in Scotland, all the objects featured were recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS). Since the PAS was set up in 1997, some 800,000 objects have been registered with the scheme, many of them discovered by amateur metal detectorists.
| Britain's Secret Treasures | |
|---|---|
Ralph Jackson (Curator of Romano-British Collections at the British Museum) and Bettany Hughes during filming at the British Museum | |
| Genre | Documentary |
| Created by | Michael Kelpie and Ed Taylor |
| Presented by | |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 14 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Michael Kelpie, Ed Taylor |
| Running time | 30–60 mins |
| Production company | ITV Studios |
| Original release | |
| Network | ITV |
| Release | 16 July 2012 – 5 December 2013 |
The fifty finds have been selected by Hughes and a panel of experts from the British Museum (Roger Bland, Michael Lewis, Sally Worrell and Ian Richardson) and the Council for British Archaeology (Mike Heyworth) from among the nearly one million finds reported to the PAS on the basis of their historical and cultural significance, as well as on their aesthetic merit. The six episodes of Britain's Secret Treasures present the fifty objects in reverse order according to their importance as judged by the panel, in a countdown format, with the ten most important objects revealed during the sixth and final episode.
Taking the top slot in the countdown, as the most important object according to the panel, is a Lower Paleolithic flint handaxe made more than half a million years ago that was found on a beach in Happisburgh, Norfolk, in 2000 by a man taking his dog for a walk.