A boy found a 2000-year-old golden Roman bracelet in a field – photo

In the UK, a boy found a rare golden Roman bracelet in a field where it had been lying for 2000 years.

This was reported by SSPDaily.

Rowan Brennan, 12, was walking with his mother Amanda, 44, and their dog when he noticed a bracelet dating back to the first century AD.

The Roman armilla bracelet has since been studied by the British Museum.

Amanda said: "Rowan has always loved finding all sorts of trinkets, he's very adventurous and always picking things up off the floor. I always say: 'Put that down, it's dirty'. But this time he kept holding this piece of metal, convinced that it was real gold. I thought it was just fence tie or something – it was very dirty."

Rowan took the jewelry home and began researching how to determine if it was real gold. The jewelry met all the criteria on the checklist, but the family didn't realize that Rowan's lucky find was more than that until a hairdresser came to their home.

The hairdresser told Amanda and Rowan that she was going to go for a walk with a metal detector, so the boy told her about the metal he found. Intrigued, the hairdresser took a picture of the find and showed it to the leader of the metal-detecting session.

He told her that the item looked old and recommended that Amanda and Rowan contact a lost and found officer. Amanda said: "I didn't even realize it was gold until that moment."

They contacted the officer and have since received frequent updates on the jewelry. Rowan described how the excitement continued to build in the months following its discovery: "We took it to a jeweler and that got me a little excited, and when it started to look like 'gold' it became even more exciting. Then it was on to the treasure hunt."

Amanda said: "It took a very long time. The treasure-hunting officer was very interested in the gold, so we had to give it away because it is the property of the Crown while it goes through all these different processes."

Amanda said the piece was analyzed at the British Museum and went through the King's Court, where they learned more and more about the bracelet.

She said: "It's very exciting when we read the emails and we've been kept up to date throughout the whole process. It is a first-century Roman bracelet of the 'armilla' type. In our understanding, an armilla bracelet was given to Roman soldiers as a sign of respect, valor, and service. This is a part, it is not a complete round bracelet. What makes it a treasure is that it is over 300 years old and made of precious metal."

After the appraisal process, Rowan was told it was an "extremely rare find" for someone who was just walking the dog. Amanda added: "It's been fascinating – we've learned so much and it's great that we're still involved in the process of following his story. We now have a piece of history in our home."