Metal Detecting at the Site of 18th Century Village
Before I began searching, I looked around analyzing the site relief. I noticed the slightly highest point that overlooked the Tura River and had a few pine trees on it. I thought it could be the best strategic point or right spot on which to build a church.
Distant Fir-Trees On The Hill Attracted My Attention
I was metal detecting while walking towards the attractive spot. And I was getting lots of signals, broken and of the large objects. Then I remembered that the village existed until 1960s, therefore, there would have to be a thick modern "cultural layer" underground.
I realized that it might impose a serious problem on my partners because they had only standard 9.5 inches and 10.5 inches search coils on their machines. Without a doubt, the good targets would be masked by junk under such coils. Even though I had a 7-1/4 inches search coil on my Explorer, I wished I had a 5 inches one. It certainly would be able to pick up something good in between the iron targets. At least, the level of mineral content in soil was low.
I walked back to my friends and ask them how they were doing. Slava had problems with his Spectrum XLT performance. Lucky him, I was familiar with the machine as I used it for seven years. So I changed the program settings of his machine according to the junk situation. I warned my friends to be aware of many iron targets underground. Vladimir had already dug up a few large iron gears of some agricultural machinery.
For an hour, I searched the hill and dug up almost every signal, my pouch was filled with junk. A few items were from the 18th century. That reassured me that a 7-1/4 inches search coil was getting to the deeper and, therefore, older cultural layer. I went back to the camp and emptied my pouch.
As soon as I returned to where I stopped searching, I received a good solid coin signal. The target was approximately 9 inches deep. Finally I unearthed a coin!
I was very pleased when I recognized the coin. I wanted to find coins of this type because they were minted at the Ekaterinburg mint to be circulated inside the Siberian provinces in the 1700s. Their distinctive obverse design depicts two sables holding a coat of arms with a date inside.
Russian Siberian 1767 1 Denga (1/200th of a Rouble)
After I Cleaned It
The design of the coin is identical to the following image as both coins were minted during the rule of Catherine the Great (1762-1796) Siberian 1768 1 Kopeck (1/100th of Rouble)
