After spending around half an hour, Liang En finally managed to ascertain the general situation of this small-scale religious site. Just as he had imagined, this religious site from a more ancient era wasn't particularly large.
Looking at the area enclosed by the unprocessed stones left behind and the few charred wooden rings, this religious site was merely a small flat ground with a diameter of seven to eight meters.
"No wonder this region has been repeatedly used as a settlement by humans over the past ten centuries. The terrain here is indeed favorable," Liang En stretched and observed the surrounding environment.
His current position was on a small hill at the edge of a field. Behind him lay a dense expanse of woods, while not far in front of him, a meandering stream flowed through a valley.
Further in the distance, there was a vast expanse of lush green grassland adorned with small, bushy shrubs that resembled fluffy balls, along with a few scattered vacation cabins.
Although standing here now allowed him to feel the fragrance of earth and plants in the fresh air, and the view was of serene nature, in that ancient era, this was indeed an area suitable for establishing settlements.
For instance, the stream below was likely a remnant of a river's tributary. Considering the tonnage of boats in that era, the vessels used for communication could easily navigate upstream to this location.
This area had plains for food production and forests for timber. In short, for a considerable period, this place should have been very suitable for settlement.
According to the map in Liang En's mind, the Viking town from that era should have been constructed on a small open space by the stream, several kilometers away from where he was. During its construction, people had discovered pottery shards and even fragments of iron in the soil.
Considering the town's location, it made sense that the earliest inhabitants of this land chose to build their religious site on a hill surrounded by woods at a distance from the town.
Because in the entire British Isles region, traditional religions often involved reverence for trees. For instance, in the Druidism practiced in Britain, the term "Druid," when translated literally, means "oak sage." One of the most famous figures among them was the powerful magician who followed King Arthur: Merlin.
Traditionally, their places of worship were rarely man-made temples; they were formations of totemic stones made from uncarved rocks. For example, the various stone circles scattered across Britain were often considered their outdoor temples.
The stone circle that Liang En encountered now couldn't compare in scale to the famous Stonehenge, but the principle was exactly the same – it was a religious site used for rituals.
From the charred wood fragments, it could be deduced that this area was likely once a grove of oak trees. For the Druids, such an oak forest was sacred, naturally suitable for holding religious activities.
As for the reason why there are pine trees surrounding the area now, it's quite straightforward. During the Age of Exploration, most of the oak trees in Britain had been cleared. This ancient oak forest was no exception.
And this also explains why the impression of a treasure being unearthed from this place holds merit. Both Gauls and Celts had the custom of using various gold, silver, and gemstone items as offerings in their rituals.
Aside from burying treasures underground at religious sites like this, there were also cases of directly throwing these items into water bodies or marshes.
After standing for a while, Liang En, who had rested enough, picked up a metal detector and began to carefully search within the stone circle.
Somewhat surprisingly, the center of the stone circle that he had placed high hopes on turned out to be empty. Instead, it was when he was searching near the wall of the structure that the metal detector started beeping.
"It seems likely that this batch of wealth was temporarily hidden due to a crisis."
Seeing the spot where the metal detector sounded the alarm and its relative position to the stone circle, Liang En quickly formulated a hypothesis. This would explain why such treasures were hidden in an inconspicuous corner of this sacred place.
The next step was excavation work. To avoid accidentally damaging the treasures while digging, Liang En simply knelt beside the patch of soil and started digging carefully with a small shovel used for potting soil.
Merely a palm's depth down, a glint of gold appeared at the bottom of the pit. Only a small portion of it was visible, about the length of a little finger, resembling rotating ribbons or an ice-drilling bit.
"Indeed, it's here." At the sight of the gold, Liang En became instantly excited. This meant he had possibly found the most astonishing Iron Age ornaments in the Scottish region so far.
If he remembered correctly, the initial discoverer had received one million pounds from a museum.
Because the soil here was relatively soft, combined with the fact that all the treasures were made of gold, Liang En discarded the shovel that might cause accidental bumps and began to dig with his hands.
Ten minutes later, four gold necklaces lay before him. All four of these gold necklaces were decorations from the European Iron Age, distinguishable in style and categorized into three groups.
The first group consisted of two necklaces with remarkably similar designs. They were formed by twisting elongated gold pieces, clearly reflecting the traditional style of ancient Celtic people from Scotland and Ireland.
The second group featured a tubular necklace, though only half of it remained, broken into two pieces. At first glance, this necklace somewhat resembled the piped decorations on cream cakes.
Drawing from the knowledge he gained from university courses, Liang En quickly recognized the style of this necklace to be from the southern part of France, near the Mediterranean.
The final necklace in the third group was woven from gold threads, adorned with two complex decorations at either end of the piece. In terms of craftsmanship, it was far more intricate than the other three.
Interestingly, the style of this necklace itself was a standard local design. However, the technique of weaving gold threads was derived from ancient Roman and Greek cultures.
In other words, this golden necklace was likely crafted by a jeweler well-versed in ancient Roman or Greek techniques, commissioned by a local dignitary.
This was actually a significant discovery, signifying communication between the people of Scotland and France or even Southern Europe, dating back 300 years before the Romans arrived in Britain.
After all the treasures were cleaned up, Liang En obtained two [Detection (N)] and one [Identification (N)] cards.
Having cleaned up all these treasures, Liang En immediately carried the gold necklaces back to his car. He then spent an hour composing an article that integrated his recent discovery, speculations, and the photos taken during the excavation process.
Subsequently, he emailed this article to the department responsible for underground treasures at the National Museum of Scotland. He chose to do so because this department operated independently, reporting only to the Queen and the Royal Financial Controller.
In comparison to the museum, this institution based in London was evidently more reliable. This was why Liang En decided to notify them directly.
Of course, he also uploaded the photos and documents to a cloud storage as an additional layer of security.