An investigation has been launched after a spate of disappearances of potential treasures from secured council storerooms — amid fears of an inside job. The missing artefacts were unearthed by metal detectorists across Cumbria and Lancashire over the last four years, and are believed to have been worth thousands of pounds in total. The finds had been handed over to the authorities, pending an inquest to determine whether or not they officially constituted treasures. However, the detectorists fear that the missing items may now have been secreted into the antiquities black market.
One unnamed metal detectorist told the Sun: “This is devastating for us personally but also for the nation.
“Some of these items had not been held by human hands since the Bronze Age.
“But after we found them and passed them to officials, they have vanished into thin air.”
Another detectorist, Peter Major of Barrow — whose finds had included a set of 3,500-year-old, Bronze Age stave axe heads — added: “For two-and-a-half years I heard nothing, so went to see them and was told that one of my…
