Two entries in the SWAAG database trace attempts by SWAAG president Tim Laurie to gain an understanding of a mysterious small, carved stone, found in the area and believed to be an ancient sacred object or amulet.
In the first entry, Lithic/Scatter category PDF, record no. 711, dated 2013, Tim recorded a note by the late Denis Coggins (1924-2003), formerly antiquities officer at Bowes Museum. The note had been published in the journal Antiquity, July 1982. It reported that in 1981 a metal detectorist named Ted Seaton had sought explanation for the object he had found exposed on the ground on Scargill High Moor, which is about midway between Bowes and the head of Arkengarthdale.
Perhaps significantly, the moor is above Eller Beck, previously the site of a now-lost Roman shrine. The object was photographed and recorded as a dark-grey pebble, carved in a style seemingly with parallels in Celtic (i.e. British) religious art. It was returned to the finder.
It became known as the Scargill Amulet or the Seaton Amulet. Its meaning and purpose were discussed extensively in an article published in Stonehenge Viewpoint, issue 50, November-December 1982. Tim Laurie noted that this publication was devoted to ‘an alternative view on archaeology, astronomy, geology and related arts and sciences.’ The entire, lengthy article is reproduced in the SWAAG record.
Further investigation by Tim Laurie caused him to create another entry in the SWAAG database, four years after the first entry. This can be seen in Archaeological Random Find category PDF, record no. 1002, in which Tim reported that he finder, Ted Seaton, had taken him to the find site, which turned out not to be on Scargill High Moor, but about three miles south of there, in Arkengarthdale, ‘in scree at the base of a low cliff on the east side of the Stang road.’
In this second record, Tim also revealed that he had discussed the amulet with a professional archaeologist, Percival Turnbull (1953-2016), formerly of Durham University Department of Archaeology, who had worked as an archaeologist in the Middle East and was of the firm view that the amulet was of Middle Eastern provenance, and was possibly lost by one of the many oil workers who at that time were returning home with archaeological objects collected from that region.
