Category Archives: Bronze Age

VM_365 Day 212 Early Bronze Age Urn Conundrum

Archaeology, Broadstairs, Bronze Age, In the Store, Prehistoric pottery, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
VM 212
The image for Day 212 of the VM_365 project shows an Early Bronze Age Urn found buried with a crouched inhumation within a ring ditch at the former Dumpton Greyhound Stadium, Ramsgate in 2000. It was excavated by Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit (KARU) and is now in the Trust’s stores.
This vessel presents a slight conundrum. Rather inconveniently our Ancestors did not always do things according to strict tradition. In this instance we do know that this ‘Urn’ is definitely of Early Bronze Age date, since it came from a crouched inhumation within a burial ring-ditch. However it rather obviously lacks any decoration and the form is not altogether informative either. Superficially, its rather basic form is quite untypical of any of the four main Early Bronze Age often richly decorated ceramic traditions – Beaker, Food Vessel, Collared Urn or Biconical Urn. However, its fabric is coarsely grog-tempered – hence its rather lumpy surface. This aspect and its buff-fired surface is much closer to some of the manufacturing trends associated with the Collared Urn tradition, current between c.2000-1600 BC so that, despite being a rather unimaginative creation, it can be confidently placed into this period at least.
This vessel joins the vessel shown on Day 200 as an example of an outlying variation in what are usually quite standard vessel forms.
The Virtual Museum would like to thank Nigel Macpherson-Grant for this information about the vessel.

VM_365 Day 210 Barbed and Tanged arrowhead from Laundry Road, Minster

Archaeology, Beaker, Bronze Age, Minster, Neolithic, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 210

The image for Day 210 of the VM_365 project is another taken from our slide archive.

The object shown is a Late Neolithic flint tanged and barbed arrowhead, found in the fill of a segment excavated through an enclosure at Laundry Road, Minster in 1995. Another ditch section contained pottery dating to the Beaker period, suggesting that the whole enclosure was of late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age date.

Other similar flint arrowheads from locations in Thanet have been featured in previous VM_365 posts, on Day 141, Day 162, and Day 168.

VM_265 Day 205 The Birchington III Bronze Age hoard

Archaeology, Birchington, Bronze Age, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 205

Today’s VM_365 image for Day 205 is of a Late Bronze Age Bronze Hoard given the name  Birchington III to distinguish it from other hoards. The bronzes were found by a metal detectorist near Quex Park, Birchington in 1996.

The objects include socketed axes; blade, collar and body fragments from socketed axes; fragments of blades from swords in the Ewart Park Anglo-Welsh tradition; a blade fragment from a point of a sword in the Continental Carp’s Tongue tradition; other sword blade fragments; parts of a small knife as well as part of the blade of a socketed chisel and finally, a bun ingot.

The hoard contains a large quantity of  material from the continent, probably brought in as scrap as part of cross Channel trading and presumably intended to be melted down and reused as were many of the Bronze hoards found on Thanet.

VM_365 Day 204 Bronze Age ‘Bugle’ fitting from Anglo Saxon grave

Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Bronze Age, Lord of the Manor, Ramsgate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 204

Today’s VM_365 image shows a Bronze Age ‘Bugle’ fitting that was found within an Anglo-Saxon grave at  Lord of the Manor, Ramsgate in 1980.

The ‘Bugle’ fitting is named after its similarity in shape to a bugle. This particular example is a cast copper alloy tubular fitting with a hollow body and an opening on the non loop side and at either end. Fittings such as these are attributed to the Late Bronze Age and are thought to form part of a harness or part of its equipment. The most likely use for this object would be for the fastening of a leather strap although its exact function is unknown. Other suggestions for its use have included a dog whistle used in rounding up livestock.

How did it come to be in a grave over a thousand years later? It seems that at all times in history objects from the past have been seen to be interesting enough to be collected and curated as curiosities. This object may have been prized by the occupant of the grave, or have been placed there by a family member as a talisman. Alternatively it may have come to be in the grave by sheer coincidence from the soil backfilled within it.

 

 

VM_365 Day 202 The Beck bronze hoard Minnis Bay

Archaeology, Birchington, Bronze Age, Thanet archaeology, Thanet's Heritage Pioneers, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 202

Today’s image for Day 202 of the VM_365 project is of the bronze objects, pottery and other artefacts in what has become known as the Beck Hoard.

In 1938 a boy called James Beck noticed some dark patches on the flat wave cut platform on the beach beyond the cliffs at Minnis Bay, Birchington. With the assistance of Antoinette-Powell Cotton who lived nearby at Quex Park, James excavated and recorded several of the pits and the finds within them.

In one of the pits the large bronze hoard shown today’s image was recovered, along with some large sherds of pottery. The hoard contained swords, palstave and socketed axes, spear heads along with smaller bronze objects, ingots and fittings. The details of the Beck hoard were published in Archaeologia Cantiana by G.F. Pinfold, curator of the Powell-Cotton Museum and Major Percy Powell-Cotton.

The pits were once  much deeper, having been cut from a land surface that stood at a higher elevation, which had been truncated by wave action to the level of the eroded platform that lies at the base of the present cliff line.

The Beck hoard is one of several that have been found on the present coastline of the north side of Thanet, the earliest discovery being the Mutrix Farm hoard which was shown in VM_365 Day 81. Rapid erosion of the soft deposits along this coastline is eating its way into the valleys and hill tops that would have been some distance from the sea in the Bronze Age landscape.

VM_365 Day 201 Memories of metal on ring stamped Bronze Age pottery from Margate

Archaeology, Birchington, Bronze Age, Margate, Prehistoric pottery, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 201

Today’s image is of a decorative motif on a piece of  pottery from the transitional period between the Middle and later Bronze Age.

The sherd from a vessel closely related to the one shown in Day 199, which contained the Birchington Bronze Hoard. Close inspection of the globular bowl from Birchington shows that it was decorated with a horizontal row of stamped rings, following the centre line of the body.

The sherd shown in the VM_365  image today is from another similar flint and grog tempered vessel, this time from Margate. The Margate pot is also likely to have been decorated with a single row of stamps from an object carved with a series of raised concentric circles. The stamping was added after the outer skin of the pot had been burnished to a smooth finish. On the current evidence – including the dating of the hoard from within the Birchington bowl the date of the vessel the sherd came from and other pots like this should be placed between c.1350-1150 BC.

Like much of the decoration applied to Bronze Age pottery, the ring pattern is thought to be skeuomorphic,  each of the stamped rings emulating the rivets that would have joined two sections of a bronze bowl into a globular shape.

A bronze cauldron  that was found at Shipton on Cherwell in Oxfordshire which is now in the Ashmolean Museum, gives an idea of the riveting patterns on bronze vessels that may have inspired the ring stamp motif on the pots from Birchington and Margate.

 

VM_365 Day 199 The Birchington Bronze Hoard

Archaeology, Birchington, Bronze Age, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 199

After Powell-Cotton et al 1924.

The image for Day 199 of the VM_365 project shows a Middle Bronze Age Bronze Hoard found in 1904 during brickearth extraction at Birchington.

The hoard comprised 14 palstave axes found in a globular fineware bowl of Deverel Rimbury type. Deposition within a pottery vessel is unusual and few other similar examples exist.

The vessel, which had been broken and the lower parts of which were missing, was stamped with two bands of concentric impressed rings above and below a band of scored horizontal lines. The vessel was restored in 1923.

References

Powell-Cotton, P. H. G. and Crawford, O. G. S. 1924. The Birchington Hoard. The Antiquaries Journal 4, 220-226.

 

VM_365 Day 197 Fragments of Late Bronze Age Sword from Manston

Archaeology, Bronze Age, In the Store, Manston, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 197

Today’s  image for Day 197 of the VM_365 project shows two fragments from a sword blade found as part of a Late Bronze Age Bronze Hoard at Manston in 1994.

These two joining fragments of a leaf-shaped sword blade were found along with the narrow -bladed palstave axe and pegged spearhead shown in previous VM_365 posts. Traces of the ground edge of the sword  can just be seen on both fragments.

VM_365 Day 196 Bronze Age looped palstave axe from Manston

Archaeology, Bronze Age, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM_196

The image for Day 196 is another of the bronze objects found in a late Bronze Age hoard at Manston, the same group of objects as the pegged spear head shown in Day 194.

The axe has both a slot to fit a wooden haft and a loop that could be used to secure the axe head to the haft with some form of binding.

Axes and other objects like those in the group were cast in two part moulds and often the join between the two sections of the mould can be seen as a fine extrusion line  along the central axis of the object. The casting may also include ornamental patterning or ribbing as can be seen in this example.

The ability to manipulate the production of bronze and cast it into objects like these has been seen as a skill that gave power and mystique to the bronze workers in Bronze Age society.

VM_365 Day 194 Pegged spearhead from Manston dating to the Late Bronze Age

Archaeology, Bronze Age, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM_194

The image for VM_365 Day 194 is of a Late Bronze Age pegged spear head, dating to the period 1150 – 600 BC.

This type of spear head is found in a region spanning the Thames Valley, Cambridge Fens and the east Midlands and of course in East Kent. These pegged spearheads have considerable variation in dimension and detail and can be anything from 10 to 40cm in length.

The leaf shaped blade extends from a circular central shaft, which is hollow socket at the top end, where the spear shaft would have been fitted, secured with a pin through the holes on opposite sides of the shaft. The blade in this example is slightly worn around the edges from corrosion.

This example was found with other tools and pieces of scrap bronze in a group at a site at Manston. The slightly glossy appearance to the surface is caused by a conservation treatment applied to prevent any further corrosion.