Tiny gold bible found by metal detectorists in a field near York
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A very tiny gold bible has been found by a couple using metal detectors.
NHS nurse Buffy Bailey, from Lancaster, found the book while searching farmland near York with her husband Ian.
It weighs just 0.2oz (5g) and and is thought to date back to the 15th Century.
The object is estimated to be more than 600 years old, and Buffy told the 91热爆 it could be worth over 拢100,000.
Buffy and Ian Bailey, the couple who found the tiny book
The extremely valuable bible is nowhere near big enough to read though - it's only 0.5in (1.5cm) long.
It is engraved with images of St Leonard and St Margaret, who are patron saints of childbirth, and could have been used for protection during pregnancy.
An expert described it as an "exceptionally unique" historical discovery which would have originally been owned by someone "incredibly wealthy".
It was found on land near property once owned by King Richard III, who ruled Britain from 1483 to 1485.
It's thought it could have belonged to someone very rich who might even have been royal.
Richard took the throne from his nephew Edward V in 1483
He died in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, which marked the end of the Wars of the Roses and the start of the Tudor era
His reign was one of the shortest in British history - just over two years
His body was found by archaeologists under a car park in Leicester in 2012
William Shakespeare wrote a very famous play about him
How do metal detectors work?
Handheld metal detectors come in a few different varieties, but they usually operate by having electricity flow through them to the base, which then creates an electromagnetic field.
If you pass over a metal like gold, the electromagnetic field from the detector creates another small electromagnetic field around the metal, and this is what the detector notices. The detector will then beep and let you know the metal is there.
Buffy said she found the object almost as soon as she arrived at the location
People can search for ages before their detectors go off, but Buffy said she got a signal straight away.
"I dug down five inches and it was just there - I still didn't believe it was anything special."
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