The three friends didn't know what to make of the beautiful bronze disc they dredged from the remote peat bog.

It looked ancient, and probably was, but what did three farmhands know?

As far as they were concerned, it simply looked like one thing - easy money.

What Matthew Forster and his two mates discovered while digging peat near the small village of Edmondsley, near Chester-le-Street, was the finest example of a Bronze Age shield ever seen in Europe.

So, did the threesome excitedly contact the nearest village elder or historical group? No, they chopped it into three - recognising the potential for instant cash for melted down bronze.

As the local history group at the time put it: "Wishing to gratify all his friends, he cut it up like a cake and gave to each a piece."

Thankfully, two of them had a fit of conscience and hung on to their thirds of the almost wafer-thin bronze disc. They eventually handed it over to the improbably named Mrs Watson Silvingsmith, who donated it to the Newcastle Society of Antiquities.

Barry Wood, who runs Edmondsley Local History Group, reckons the final piece could be gathering dust in someone's attic.

"Knowing Edmondsley, nobody ever throws anything away because it might come in useful one day.

"If anyone has it in their loft, I would ask them to hand it over. An attic isn't a good place for a large slice of 3,500-year-old shield."

Visitors to Newcastle University's Museum of Antiquity can now see the restored shield, known variously as the Tribley or Broomy Holm shield, complete with three tell-tale cracks, in its Middle Bronze Age display.

Undoubtedly the finest ever example found in Europe before the 20th Century, its thinness meant it was almost certainly ceremonial and not used in warfare.

Mr Wood, who is holding a local history display in Edmondsley's Jubilee Hall this weekend, has his own theory on why it was found in a peat bog.

"It is possible it was thrown in the bog as part of a ceremony. It ties in with the later Arthurian legend of the Lady in the Lake, and the shield being thrown in may be the ceremony that inspired this."

Lindsay Allason-Jones is director of archaeological museums at the university. She has an altogether simpler explanation.

"It could have been to appease a pagan god - or it could have been lost in a fight and the warrior decided to save himself from the bog rather than die trying to retrieve his shield.

"I would be very excited if the final third turned up. Someone might not even know what it is - it would look like a piece of decorated bronze."

Anyone who knows the whereabouts of the final piece of shield should contact Adrian Worsley on (01207) 280613.

*The Edmondsley Local History display, also featuring photographs and artefacts from the village's mining heritage, is on Sunday, from 4pm to 7pm.