According to Smithsonian Magazine; In Chilliwack, British Columbia, an anonymous person donated a collection of 11 rings and two medals to a thrift store in the spring of 2024. The staff of this store, which operates with the aim of providing funds for the Bereaveme Support Association, were unaware of the true value of the items and offered each piece for sale with a tag of only 30 Canadian dollars.
Some time later, the buyer, who iroduced himself as an archaeologist, saw these objects and raised the possibility of their being historical. He asked store volueers to coact experts at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby. After preliminary investigations and about a year of negotiations, the university decided to accept the objects to preve them from eering the private aiques market.
According to Barbara Hilden, director of the university’s Museum of Archeology and Ahropology, the lack of accurate documeation about the objects’ provenance made them difficult to accept. He emphasized that usually works without a clear background have limited scieific value, but this particular case was considered an exception due to its unique nature.
According to preliminary investigations by Sabrina Higgins, an archaeologist at the university, the material and construction techniques of the objects indicate that they may date back to the 4th or 5th ceury AD and the era of the Western Roman Empire. One of the medals has the Greek letters “CH” and the Roman letter “RH” which together form the symbol of Christ or “Christogram”.
The artifacts are now housed in the university’s Museum of Archeology and Ahropology and are scheduled to be the subject of a new undergraduate course in fall 2026. During this course, studes will get acquaied with digital methods in the analysis of historical works, along with the scieific investigation and archiving of objects.
According to Higgins, in the course of research, it may be determined that the objects are fake, but even this result has educational value and can provide a basis for investigating the phenomenon of forgery in the aique market. At the end of the course, studes will participate in designing a new exhibition about this collection.
