How a 4000 year old necklace was saved from a dumpster!

An ancient necklace dating back 4,000 years has been returned to the National Museum after being found in a dumpster.

The priceless necklace went through many adventures before being luckily rescued at the last moment. Its an incredibly light and delicate artifact weighing in at only 78 grams. In addition to the necklace two golden discs, usually worn on the chest were also found. These represent one of the most important archaeological finds in the many years.

And it came within hours of being buried in a landfill and lost forever.

The necklace is called a lunula it would have been worn by early Kings in Ireland. This is prior to even the advent of the Celts in Ireland as the lunula is dated 2,300 and 1,800 BC.

The lunala was lost for many years before being recovered by a local farmer in Roscommon, Ireland while cutting turf. He brought home the lunula and kept it at home for two years.

However he did not hold onto the item but instead, probably recognizing the value of the item handed it over to the local chemist who stored it in his shop safe. The decades passed by until one day in February 2009 when robbers broke into the Chemists and stole the safe.

The two criminals were arrested in March 2010 - a year after the original break-in. The Irish police and museum specialists went to work trying to track this new lead and eventually learned that the jewlery, and other possessions of the chemist, had been left in a dumpster in Dubline city.

The race was now on to recover the the property before the garbage collection of that morning. With only hours to search a priceless treasure from pre-historic Ireland was in danger of being lost for ever.

A museum official put it aptly when he said: “There is a whole lot of conjoined freaks of good luck to make it possible."

Thankfully lady luck wanted to see this pre-historic treasure stick around for another few years.