An ancient treasure from the time when Stonehenge was new has been unearthed in an Essex field – and Chelmsford Museum is appealing to the public to help save it.

In 2016, a metal detectorist was searching a ploughed field in the Danbury area when he uncovered something bright amidst the dark soil: a rolled-up strip of shining gold.

Like all gold and silver finds in England and Wales which are thought to be over 300 years old, the curled strip was sent to the British Museum to be inspected as ‘treasure’. The specialist who examined it identified it as a diadem made from 95 per cent gold, dating to the very beginning of the Bronze Age, around 2500BC.

This diadem is possibly the oldest piece of gold metalwork in Essex.

Bronze Age diadems – headbands – like this are part of the Beaker Culture, which spread across Europe and brought metalworking technology to Britain.

If unwound, the diadem would go around somebody’s head, shining across their brow. A gold one like this would have belonged to someone very important, maybe a powerful woman.

Nick Wickenden, curatorial consultant at Chelmsford Museum, said: “It has been rolled up, making it no longer usable as a headband. Perhaps it was buried as an offering to the gods. Perhaps its owner died, or fell from power, and the diadem was ritually ‘decommissioned’ by rolling it into a tight spiral and burying it at a special location.

“In other parts of the world, diadems like this have been found with decorative embossing on the inside. This one cannot be unrolled to find out, as that would risk damaging it – even uncovered and analysed by experts, it keeps its mystery.”

To buy and display the diadem, Chelmsford Museum must raise £3,000 by the end of October.

Help at www.spacehive.com/essexgold.