1 . Metal detecting (探测) is a big hobby in the U.K. This year, more people have been doing this because of the corona-virus (新冠病毒). Social distancing is very easy when people work with their metal detectors. More than 47,000 objects were found with metal detectors in 2020. People have been recording their finds on an app on the British Museum’s website. The U.K. Culture Minister said, “It is amazing to see the app growing from strength to strength during lockdown thanks to garden discoveries and digital reporting.”

The British Museum said people have dug up many exciting and interesting things this year. Perhaps the best find among the new discoveries are two hoards (批) of coins. One of the hoards contained 50 South African gold coins found 50 miles northwest of London. The other coin hoard contained 63 gold coins and one silver coin featuring (刻有) the British kings Edward IV and Henry VIII. Experts believe they were buried in the 16th century. Another find was an ancient Roman furniture fitting made of copper. It featured the face of the god Oceanus and dates back to AD 43-200.

The UK’s Treasure Act of 1996 requires that finders report each discovery more than 300 years old to the local government in the area where they found it. If the local authority defines the object as treasure, the government then pays a fair market price to the discoverer.

The database of the British Museum contains records of more than 1.5 million objects discovered since 1998 by the general public rather than by professional archaeologists. The museum said that the app ensures that finds are not lost but instead recorded, which are important for understanding Britain’s past.

Archaeologists in northeast China’s Jilin Province     1     (discover) several ruins of the ancient Fuyu Kingdom in the Yong’an Site in the city of Jilin so far, according     2     the provincial cultural relics and archaeology research institute.

The Yong’an Site     3     (locate) in Fengman District of Jilin City. Archaeologists first found the site in 2018. So far, 1,000 square meters of the site have been excavated (挖掘). Archaeologists also found decorative bricks, tiles and other architectural components as well as the     4     (remain) of two houses and a well    5     (belong) to different ancient periods in the site.

The discovery of the well proves that the ancient people living in the area had     6     history of drilling and using wells no later than the period of the Bohai Kingdom (698-926). Through the excavation of the well, archaeologists restored the well drilling technology in this historical period.     7    (unbelievable), the excavated well is 7 meters deep.

It is rare     8    (find) house ruins of Fuyu Kingdom,     9     is an ethnic power in northeast China from the 2nd century BC to AD 494. It indicates that Yong’an site is a residential ruin of the Fuyu Kingdom. It also provides new materials for     10     (far) recovering the living scenes of Fuyu people and studying the surrounding ruins of the same period.