Welcome to the British History Podcast, my name is Jamie.

As you're probably aware, we're doing a series on the Staffordshire Horde, and we're

lucky enough to have access to some rather incredible experts to tell us a bit about the

Horde.

I'd like to thank the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum in Stoke

on Trent for the incredible support they've offered to this project.

Now I'd like to start this discussion by sharing with you how exciting this material

and the mystery behind it is, and I can think of no better person to really peak your

interest than Kathy Schingler.

If you're interested in seeing photographs of the object that we're discussing, please

head over to the British History Podcast dot com and click on episode 80, Staffordshire

Horde, rise up over Lord.

There you'll see images of what we're talking about, as well as links to the Birmingham

Museum and Art Gallery, the Potteries Museum, and of course to the Horde itself.

And with that, let's get this going.

I'm Kathy Schingler, I'm Interpretation Officer for Stoke Museums Service and I've worked

with the Horde since it was found pretty much.

For me, the piece that's going to be the key to finding and dating the whole thing is

the engraved strip.

It's peculiar because it's got writing on all we know that the merchants who lived in

this part of England were not literate people, that's partly why we know so little about

them.

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