DO you have an ancient treasure lurking in your loft?

Then take it to the Yorkshire Museum, in York, on Saturday to learn about its past.

The museum is hosting a Fabulous Finds Days to give people the chance to have their favourite finds examined by experts.

Museum curators and experts from the Portable Antiques Scheme will be at the Yorkshire Museum between 10am and noon and 1pm and 3pm.

They will identify and provide information about people's treasured objects, whether they are an old coin or clay pipe dug up in the garden, or something bought at an antiques fair.

Children will be able to become archaeologists for the day and piece together pots from the museum's collections, which are hundreds of years old.

Expert curators will give talks on fantastic finds in the museums' collection.

In Hull, the Portable Antiques Scheme will be holding a Finds Identification Days which will be linked by live web cam to the Yorkshire Museum event.

Afterwards, many of the finders and their discoveries will appear online and photographs will be displayed at the Yorkshire Museum.

The fun will continue on May 21, when the museum will hold a Fabulous Fossils Day, where visitors can bring in fossils and rocks to be identified by geology experts.

Fabulous Finds Day is organised by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) as part of Museums And Galleries Month, which runs from May 1 to 31.

It brings together two major national initiatives: the Renaissance programme to revitalise England's regional museums, and the Portable Antiques Scheme, which is the country's largest community archaeology project.

Children and young people under the age of 16 are invited to enter a competition to become Finder Of The Year. The title will be awarded to the finder with the best story, rather than the one with the oldest, prettiest or most valuable object.

Mark Wood, MLA chairman, said: "Some people are hooked on antique fairs, others enjoy rummaging around junk shops or metal detecting on farmland.

"Fabulous Finds Days give people the chance to learn more about their finds and to have them recorded and displayed so others can enjoy them."

Fabulous Finds Days will be run throughout museums across the country during Museums And Galleries Month.

Updated: 10:50 Tuesday, April 26, 2005