Category Archives: In the Store

VM_365 Day 119 Anglo Saxon Spearhead from Sarre

Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, In the Store, Sarre, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 119

Day 119’s image shows the remains of an Anglo Saxon spearhead from grave 283 at Sarre.

The grave was very shallow, measuring only 0.24 metres deep and had been disturbed or robbed in antiquity probably in the Anglo Saxon period. Only a few of the bones of the skeleton of an adult male aged over 30 years old remained in situ.

The original position of the spearhead in the grave is unknown and it was later dislodged from the grave fill when it was cleared by the mechanical excavator before hand excavation. The spearhead would most likely have originally been located near the skull along one side of the grave edge as is common with other undisturbed graves.

The part where the spearhead was attached to the wooden shaft, the ferrule, is relativley well preserved and wood impressions of the shaft are visible on the inside of the corroded metal. The spearhead is of 6th century date, conforming to Swanton’s E4 type. Five others were found when graves from the same cemetery were excavated in the 19th century by John Brent.

References

Perkins, D. R. J. 1992. The Jutish Cemetery at Sarre Revisited: Part II. Archaeologia Cantiana Volume CX, 83-120.

Swanton, M. J. 1974. A Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Spear Types. British Archaeological Reports 4.

VM_365 Day 118 Anglo Saxon Shield Boss from Monkton

Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, In the Store, Ramsgate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 118

Today’s VM 365 Day 118 image is of the remains of  a sixth century type shield boss found within a grave at the Monkton  Anglo Saxon cemetery during pipeline work in 1982.

The shield boss was found in the grave of an adult male which had been heavily disturbed by ploughing. Only 12 centimetres of the grave’s depth remained intact. Despite the disturbance,  iron shield-grip fragments, a sword blade, bronze buckle, whet stone and a gold bracteate were also recovered from the grave.

The shield boss  fragments were located between the right elbow and left shoulder and would have been attached to a wooden shield which was laid over the body during burial.

VM_365 Day 117 Anglo Saxon Sword from Sarre

Anglo Saxon, Birchington, In the Store, Uncategorised, Uncategorized, VM_365 Project

VM 117

Today’s image for Day 117 of VM_365 is of an Anglo Saxon Sword and an X-Ray taken when it was being conserved.

The sword was excavated from grave 275 at the Anglo Saxon cemetery at Sarre in 1990. Measuring 0.9 metres long, the sword was found above the skeleton of an adult male aged between 25 to 30 years old and may have been laid on a coffin lid rather than next to the body.

The X-Ray revealed a faint herringbone shadow indicating pattern-welded construction with added cutting edges. The tang and shoulder of the blade show traces of a hilt and guard, probably of bone, while the downward side of the blade retained evidence of a wooden scabbard.

The end of the tang was associated with the fragmentary remains of an iron ring suggesting this was a ring-hilted sword, although without the decorative hilt furniture usually associated with swords of this type.

 

VM_365 Day 116 Anglo Saxon Buckle

Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Birchington, In the Store, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 116

Today’s image is of a tiny  decorated buckle found at the Anglo Saxon cemetery at Sarre, near Birchington in 1990. It was found within grave 288,  disturbed in antiquity, with the bones of the skeleton, possibly a male aged 30-35 years, piled at the foot of the grave.

This small buckle dating to the 6th-7th century is made of bronze with a folded rectangular plate fastened by three rivets. It would have been mounted on a strap rather than a belt as the loop could only accept a strap end less than 10mm wide. It is decorated with incised lines, punched rings and lines of punched dots. Buckles of this form are common but as they are more usually plain, this decorated example is slightly more unusual.

Reference

Perkins, D. R. J. 1992. The Jutish Cemetery at Sarre Revisited: Part II. Archaeologia Cantiana CX, 83-120.

VM_365 Day 111. Shale bracelet from Margate

Archaeology, In the Store, Iron Age, Margate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 111

Today’s image is part of an Iron Age shale bracelet found during an archaeological evaluation at Hartsdown, Margate in 1995. The bracelet was found in a storage pit that had been filled with rubbish when it was no longer needed.

The bracelet is carved from Kimmeridge shale with ground faces on the front and back, the inner and outer surfaces are unpolished.

VM_365 Day 110. Iron Age Weaving Comb

Broadstairs, In the Store, Iron Age, Uncategorised, Uncategorized, VM_365 Project

VM 110

Today’s image is of an Iron Age weaving comb from the Iron Age settlement at Dumpton Gap, Broadstairs.

Most clothing would have been made from sheeps wool woven by hand on wooden looms. Combs such as these were used to push threads in place while weaving. Other artefacts associated with cloth making such as loom weights, used to hold the threads taut on the loom, and spindle whorls, used for making the yarn are also commonly found on settlement sites.

This particular comb was found in a rubbish pit dating to the late Iron Age, around 25 BC-25 AD. It is made from animal bone and has been decorated although the irregular lines you can see on the surface are caused by tiny plant rootlets scaring the surface whilst it was in the ground.

It is not clear if this comb had actually been used as it appears to be unfinished. If you look carefully at the upper part of the comb there are four circles marked out, two overlapping, and two others are visible in the middle on the right side. These circles were scored using a compass and would then have been carved to form ring and dot decoration. The decoration on this comb did not progress beyond scoring the circles; perhaps it was a practice piece, as two sets of the circles appear to overlap and it was discarded, perhaps the teeth broke before the decoration could be finished, or, perhaps it was needed before it could be finished and was used anyway.

VM_365 Day 107 Where have all the fragments gone?

Archaeology, In the Store, Roman, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project, What's going on?
Large Roman jar undergoing reconstruction.
From the ground to gluing tray, large Roman jar undergoing reconstruction.

In the image for VM_365 Day 107, we have one of the last of the vessels from the Roman kitchen at Broadstairs that can be reconstructed. The large jar is shown in the ground during excavation and on the right in the sand tray we use to hold the sherds in place while they are glued together. All of the vessels from the same site shown in the previous VM_365 posts over the last few days have been through this method of reconstruction.

First each sherd must be recovered, located and fitted together in a dry run, to see what order they need to be glued in. The process of sticking the sherds together must be carried out very precisely and in small stages as otherwise the pieces of the vessel may not meet in the middle when the last piece is added.  When the glue is applied the sherds must be held in exact position until the bond is made. Any errors will mean that the next pieces can’t be properly fitted.

The large jar was one of the most obvious near complete vessels within the thick deposit of sherds, however once it was lifted it was clear that it had been broken before it was thrown in and the jar came apart into a number of large pieces. Some of the sherds from one side of the vessel had been spread elsewhere in the deposit and had to be picked out from the spare pieces left over after we had matched as many as possible. We may still be missing a few in the end!

We’ll post more on this vessel once the glue has dried and we can take a proper photograph of the result.

VM_365 Day 104. Roman dish from Broadstairs

Archaeology, Broadstairs, In the Store, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 104

Today’s VM_365 image is another of the vessels from the Roman Kitchen at Fort House, Broadstairs, a flanged dish, around 23cm in diameter. The vessel is made in a black fabric, at a time when Late Iron Age grog tempering potting methods were moving toward a more Romanised ‘Native Coarse Ware’ fabric tradition. This dish is likely to date between c.150 to 200 AD.

The interior of the dish has been polished to a sheen and then divided into quarters by a burnished cross. Most of the dish is present and a large part of it can be seen on the surface of the pottery dump in the centre of the picture published on VM_365 Day 98.

VM_365 Day 103. Roman Flagon from Broadstairs

Archaeology, Broadstairs, In the Store, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 103The image for Day 103 continues the series of images of vessels re-assembled from the many sherds recovered from the dump of kitchen ware from the Fort House Roman Building.
The vessel shown is a ring-neck flagon, a bottle with a handle which would have been used to store liquids, perhaps even wine. The flagon is made of a silty grey fabric with the addition of very fine grog filler and tiny fragments of red ironstone less than 2mm in size. Firing has turned the fabric to a buff-brown colour. The range of manufacturing date for this type of flagon is between 130-200 AD.

As it is pictured here, the pot has been carefully rebuilt from the 53 sherds that were recovered in the excavation, just enough sherds to reconstruct the full profile, although there were quite a few gaps. Fragments of another very similar flagon were present but could not be reconstructed.

VM_365 Day 100. Building up the Roman Kitchen pots

Broadstairs, From the Archives, In the Store, Roman, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Refitting rims and vessel sections
Refitting rims and vessel sections

For our 100th day of the VM_365 project we have another image from the Roman Kitchen pots from Broadstairs.

From the sorting and refitting of the mass of pottery from the Kitchen dump, some very distinctive vessels began to emerge and although every sherd was present, some vessels were represented by enough pieces to make a substantial reconstruction.

In the image today the full circuit of the rim of a very large vessel has been assembled. In the tray to the right, the sherds from another nearly complete mixing bowl were gathered together, ready to be re-fitted.

With substantial elements reconstructible, the vessels could be identified very precisely…