| Roman helmet sold for £2m Metal detectorist who found it in Crosby Garrett, Cumbria, now a millionaire as UK museum priced out by anonymous buyerIn just three minutes at a Christie's auction, the most hauntingly beautiful face to emerge from the British soil in more than a century slid out of the grasp of the museum desperate to acquire it when the Roman helmet was sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for £2m – dramatically higher than the highest pre-sale estimate of £300,000.The man who found it last May, using a metal detector on farmland on the outskirts of the Cumbrian hamlet of Crosby Garrett, a currently unemployed graduate in his early 20s from the north-east, will share the price with the landowner, but is now a millionaire.Tullie House museum in Carlisle managed to stay in the bidding up to £1.7m, a staggering sum for a small museum raised in gifts and grant promises through frantic fundraising in the last month. Three more bids of £100,000 each lost it the treasure."I'm still shaking," Andrew Mackay, senior curator at the museum, said moments later. "Cumbria has had a few bad knocks recently, and this fundraising campaign was a good news story for the area, so this is a real blow. People will be terribly disappointed – we had thousands of pounds coming in every day, and children literally emptying their piggy banks."We are now very, very anxious to talk to the buyer to see where we go next."The stunning Roman cavalry helmet, dating from the late first or early second century AD, a piece of public swagger for parades and festivals never meant to be worn in combat, is only the third ever found complete in Britain, the first since 1905, and by far the most beautiful.It has transfixed thousands of visitors in the past week, when it went on display for the first time at Christie's in South Kensington. People have stood gazing into the dreamy youthful face, the mouth slightly parted, the eyes with their delicate cut-out pupils. Christie's sources report that, uniquely, many viewers had asked where they could donate to the campaign to keep it in a British museum.Christie's could not reveal whether the buyer is British or overseas – a Californian phone bidder, presumed to be the Getty museum, dropped out at £800,000 – but the museum's best hope is that it is either a UK buyer willing to loan, or if it has been bought overseas that the government will impose an export bar to allow time to raise the money to match the sale price.Only a handful of helmets such quality have been found anywhere across the former Roman empire, and potential buyers from all over the world registered interest.The finder and his father had searched the same fields for years, with the permission of the landowner, and never found anything more exciting than a few coins and some bits of broken horse harness: he continued going there, he has explained, because he liked the views.When he found the helmet face down in the clay, the silvered face intact but the Phrygian cap and its jaunty little griffin topknot crushed into many pieces, he first thought it was a Victorian ornament.His good fortune has exposed a gaping hole in Britain's protection for archaeological heritage finds, and is bound to lead to calls for reform of the Treasure Act.If the helmet had fallen within the legal definition of treasure, the finder and landowner would have been awarded compensation at the market price, and it would probably already be on display in the Tullie House galleries.However, only objects with a large composition of gold or silver, such as the spectacular Staffordshire hoard of Anglo Saxon gold which was acquired last year by a coalition of local museums, or prehistoric hoards of bronze such as the find earlier this year of a vast clay pot in Frome holding 52,000 mainly low-value coins, fall within the law. A single bronze object, however astonishing, is not legally treasure.The finder was not even legally obliged to report the helmet, although he chose to do so under the voluntary portable antiquities scheme (Pas) for reporting archaeological finds, and he was fully entitled to turn down the suggestion of a negotiated sale to the museum, and instead send it straight to auction."It's so frigging annoying," said Sally Worrell, the Pas finds officer who first saw the mask. "I'm gutted to be honest – it's so frustrating to have worked so long on this and then not see it go to the museum."Roger Bland, head of the Pas, based at the British Museum, whose Roman experts have fully backed Tullie House's attempt to acquire it, agreed. "It does expose a real gap in the treasure law – a review was promised three years ago, and if it had been carried out, this outcome could have been avoided."The report of the find does mean the find spot is recorded and full archaeological excavation to uncover the riddle of how such a stunning object ended up in a nondescript field miles from the nearest Roman site may still follow.HeritageArchaeologyMuseumsMaev Kennedyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Court defeat for Liverpool owners A High Court judge grants an injunction blocking the attempts of Liverpool's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett to halt the sale of the club. news.bbc.co.uk |
Banks cheer George Osborne's bid to keep firms from moving abroad City emerges relatively unscathed from spending review despite chancellor's pledge to extract 'maximum sustainable' tax revenueThe banking industry appeared to have got off lightly in the spending review even as George Osborne pledged to extract the "maximum sustainable" tax revenue from the sector in the coming years.As the chancellor prepared to announce details of his £2.5bn a year levy on bank balance sheets tomorrow, he won approval in the City for making clear that he was aware of the risks that some firms might leave London if the tax regime was more draconian than in other financial centres.In contrast to his blitz on benefit-dependent sections of society, Osborne did not spell out any fresh policies on banks. Although he acknowledged public anger about high bonuses, he did not demand banks reduce payouts to staff.As well as promising to publish legislation on the bank levy, he repeated his warning from the weekend that the 11 banks that had not yet signed Labour's code on tax avoidance should do so in the next fortnight. He also repeated his pledge to seek international agreement for a financial activities tax on profits and bonuses, without specifying what this might mean in practice.The British Bankers' Association, the lobby group for the banking industry, said: "Financial services currently contribute around £24bn in taxes every year so we are pleased the chancellor said he wishes to balance taxation with the attractiveness of the UK as a global financial centre and the need to retain jobs."Osborne said his levy on bank balance sheets would bring in more each year than Labour's one-off tax on bonuses, which resulted in £2.3bn for the exchequer when it was introduced for four months in December. Osborne told MPs: "Our aim will be extract the maximum sustainable tax revenues from financial services."The Treasury will explain today how the bank levy will work in practice after consulting on a charge of 0.04% in the first year - generating £1.1bn - rising to 0.07% in 2012-13 to raise £2.3bn and up to £2.5bn in 2013-14.The City was also keen to see how the government would handle concerns that banks might be hit with a levy from other countries, such as France and Germany, and how foreign banks with branches in the UK would be treated.Chris Cummings, chief executive of TheCityUK, said: "I trust the chancellor's commitment to preserving the UK's competitive position in global financial services will be reflected fully in those proposals. Our sector will not balk at making a fair and predictable contribution to the taxation regime, where the taxation regime preserves the competitive position of the UK."The Corporation of London, the local authority of the City, said it hoped "we can now begin to draw a line under this issue".Stuart Fraser, chairman of the policy and resources committee at the corporation, said: "It is clear that we are already at a tipping point – not just in terms of the amount of tax firms and individuals are being asked to pay but also in terms of the predictability and uncertainty underpinning our tax regime."Spending review 2010Tax and spendingBankingLiberal-Conservative coalitionConservativesGeorge OsborneJill Treanorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Top toys for Christmas revealed The Toy Retailers' Association has come up with a list of 12 toys they expect will be the most popular this Christmas bbc.co.uk |
Home-made camera captures moments of nature These spectacular images capture the beautiful movements of some of nature's most elusive animals - using equipment almost half a century old. telegraph.co.uk |