The finder was metal-detecting without the knowledge and permission of the owners of the site, which had recently been cleared for building work, and made his discovery late on a November day, in failing light.

He recovered the material in great haste, probably overlooking some small items, and because he knew he had no legal right to search in that area, he did not, as the law requires, report his discovery to the authorities.

It was not even possible to question the finder about the circumstances, because by the time the material arrived at the British Museum for study, he was terminally ill, and he died about a month later, in July 1980.

[5] It has been suggested that it is unlikely that these items were intended to be used for ordinary domestic dining, and that their eventual deposition may be interpreted as a ritual act rather than a practical one (See Religion in Ancient Rome).

However, since both pagan and Christian inscriptions are regularly found on Roman jewellery and domestic tableware, and as the actual motivation for the concealment of the Thetford material itself is unknown, this view is open to debate.

The unusual composition of the group of gold objects is actually somewhat better evidence of a non-domestic background than the decoration and inscriptions of the silver assemblage (see comments on the range of finger-rings in the following section).

[6] The gold belt-buckle is an unusual find, and would have been worn by a man;[7] we know that belts decorated in various forms were important symbols of office or status in late Roman times, though few elements of them have survived.

In fact, the animal on Thetford spoon (item 66) is probably a tiger: the rendering of the stripes as very short curved lines, easily mistaken for spots, was common in Roman art.

[14] It is interesting that a Greek-inscribed charm appears in a hoard primarily associated with an Italian (Latin) minor deity (Faunus), though many other Greek inscriptions are known from Roman Britain, and other examples of late-Antique ‘magical gems’ have also been found in Latin-speaking provinces.

Although the combination of silver tableware and gold personal ornament (with or without coins) is common enough in precious-metal hoards of this period from Britain, the fact that the inscriptions, supported by the visual imagery, allude to pagan, rather than Christian, belief towards the end of the 4th century, is important.