In June of 2015, a pair of hobbyists carrying metal detectors came upon a hoard of extremely rare gold coins and jewelry, in astonishingly good condition, that came from the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia and had almost certainly been buried by the marauding Vikings who plundered it. Great Britain has fair but strict laws governing the discovery of ancient treasure — laws that these gentlemen had skirted when they stumbled on the hoard and flouted after they found it. As Rebecca Mead reports, the men came to a predictably bad end, but much of the treasure is still missing. – The New Yorker