Britain's Secret Treasures (2012)

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. 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. The fifty finds have been selected by Hughes and a panel of experts from the British Museum and the Council for British Archaeology 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.