What followed was six months of patience, which Gerald had, and bureaucratic uncertainty, which Miriam had less tolerance for. The pendant went to the government museum’s portable antiquities team for analysis. A metallurgist, a classicist, and a specialist in pre-Roman Mediterranean trade objects were all, at various points, involved. Gerald received official letters in formal language that committed to very little.
But in March, Dr Okafor rang rather than wrote, and her voice had a different quality. The analysis had confirmed that the metal was consistent with Etruscan alloy compositions from roughly the fifth to the third centuries BC. The carnelian stone was of a type sourced from the eastern Mediterranean. The granulation technique matched examples held in Florence and the Vatican collections. A university epigrapher was assessing the symbols on the reverse, but preliminary indications suggested a dedication or ownership inscription—the kind placed on objects of personal significance.
“We’re not calling it definitively Etruscan,” she said carefully. “But the balance of evidence is strongly suggestive.”
Gerald sat with this. Then he asked the question that had been circling since October. “How does an Etruscan pendant end up six inches under a garden in Harrogate?”
“That,” Dr Okafor said, “is the part that interests us most. It isn’t impossible—Roman legions moved objects extraordinary distances, and there was significant trade through what is now York. But six inches is very shallow for something this old to survive in agricultural soil. It may not have been there as long as it appears.”