That’s not a potato: mystery of Egyptian treasures found buried in grounds of Scottish school

Incredible tale of Melville House where, over a 30-year period, pupils uncovered treasures of antiquity

In 1952, a schoolboy was digging up potatoes, assisting a gardener in the grounds of his school in Fife as part of a punishment. He stumbled across a bulbous shape that he initially mistook for a potato, only to discover later that he had found an Egyptian masterpiece made some 4,000 years ago.

The idea of finding ancient treasures buried in the Scottish countryside, rather than beneath the sands of Cairo, is somewhat unlikely. Yet this was to be the first of 18 Egyptian antiquities unearthed on three separate occasions by schoolboys over some 30 years in the most unexpected of places – Melville House, an historic building near the small parish of Monimail in Fife.