Klemperer, the principal collections officer at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, is among the officials traveling to Washington from Stoke-On-Trent in Staffordshire, England, to display at the National Geographic Museum the largest find of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver. What is the Staffordshire Hoard?

There is nothing else like it in the world. It’s 1,500 pieces of war booty found in the soil of our county, Staffordshire. A man using a metal detector found it; I have been in archeology for 35 years, and this is by far the find of my lifetime. It’s such a powerful link to the past.