IN 2010, Radio 4 listeners were able to hear a series of 15-minute programmes called The History Of The World In 100 Objects.
In each of the 100 episodes, the British Museum director Neil MacGregor described one object from the museum's collection which represented a key aspect or development in world history.
I was surprised to hear that one of the selected 100 objects, a jade hand axe, was described as being found in Canterbury.
I was even more surprised to find out that no local archaeologists could explain who dug it up, when it was found, where it was found, or indeed anything at all about an object that was seen by the British Museum as one of their top interesting 100 objects in the world!
The axe can be seen in the British Museum (Room 51). It is exquisite – pleasingly smooth, highly polished and just over six and a half inches (219 mm) long.
Experts estimate that it could take 1,000 hours of polishing to reduce a jade axe to this perfect state.
It dates apparently from around 4000 BC and has never been used for cutting or scraping – this item was not a tool but was kept and treasured for reasons of prestige, power or art.
The inherent markings in jade are so distinct and variable that, in some cases, we can identify the block of jade from which they were originally cut.
In this instance, archaeologists have identified the source rock lying at over 6,500 ft (2,000 metres) in the North Italian alps. Amazingly, a similar jade axe found in Dorset (now on show in the Dorchester Museum) can be traced to the same alpine source.
All this sheds fascinating light on trade routes and social organisation of our forefathers 6,000 years ago. British Museum staff were able to tell me one further fact about the Canterbury jade axe – it was donated to them in 1901 by a Major Frank Bennett Goldney.
Frank Bennett Goldney was MP for the city from 1910 to 1918 and mayor from 1906 to 1911. He was also curator of the newly formed Beaney Museum, and was instrumental in getting Queen Victoria to confer a royal status for the new institution.
He was a confirmed bachelor and lived with his mother in Abbot's Barton, now a modern hotel on the Dover Road. He died in 1918 in a road accident in France whilst serving as an assistant military attaché to the British Embassy in Paris.
Since then serious doubt about his integrity has come to light. It seems Frank merged his personal life with his roles as MP, mayor and museum curator without clear boundaries, and was careless with who exactly owned what.
His estate for probate purposes included not just the 2,000 books from his personal library but also city charters that clearly belonged to the city archives, which were returned only after a court case that cost the city council £500 in legal fees (more than £40,000 in today's money).
It also seems he may have been implicated in the theft of Ireland's crown jewels from Dublin Castle in 1907.
In February that year Frank had been appointed to the office of Athlone Pursuivant, an obscure post in the Irish Office of Arms. The robber has never been found, nor the jewels returned. Not long after the theft, one missing relic from the Irish collection turned up in the Beaney Museum – Frank explained it had simply been temporarily borrowed. On Frank's death it turned up in his personal effects.
Given Frank's muddled personal affairs and dubious business ethics, we can only guess at the true facts. Did he own the jade axe? Was it really from a Canterbury source? I'm afraid we'll never know. But it's still a stunning piece with a fascinating story.
For more information, visit the CHAS website, at www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk
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