Category Archives: Anglo Saxon

VM_365 Day 149 Silver Square Headed Brooch from Sarre

25th November 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, From the Archives, Sarre, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

VM 149

Today’s VM_365 image for Day 149 is of an illustration of a late sixth century, silver, small square-headed brooch found in Grave 4 at Sarre by John Brent in 1863. This coloured illustration was published in 1863 in an account of the Kent Archaeological Society’s researches of the cemetery at Sarre.

The brooch is very similar to the example found in 1982 during the excavation of the Monkton Gas Pipeline which we posted for Day 147.

It is suggested that both brooches, as well as an example from Bifrons, Howletts all came from the same workshop and although very similar, they vary in slight details and do not come from exactly the same mould.

This brooch was found in the grave of a female along with a Great Square Headed brooch, a bell beaker, weaving baton, crystal ball and spoon, gold braid and other smaller items.

References

Brent, J. 1863. Account of the Society’s Researches in the Saxon Cemetery at Sarr, Part 1. Archaeologia Cantiana V, 305-22.

Perkins, D. R. J. and Hawkes, S. C. 1984. The Thanet Gas Pipeline Phases I and II (Monkton Parish), 1982. Archaeologia Cantiana CI, 83-114.

VM_365 Day 147 Silver Square Headed Brooch from Minster

23rd November 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Minster, Monkton, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

VM 147

Today’s image for VM_365 Day 147 is a small silver square headed brooch excavated from an Anglo Saxon grave at Monkton near Minster in 1982. The brooch is no longer in our possession and the above photograph was taken in 1982.

The brooch was found in the grave of a female buried in the second third of the sixth century. Remains of gold threads similar to those found at Sarre were found on the skull and other finds included a bronze ring for a purse or bag at her waist, a bronze buckle and amber beads over her upper body. The brooch was found on her left shoulder.

The brooch is made of silver with gilding applied by mercury amalgam. It is a Kentish type with similar brooches found at the cemeteries at Sarre and Bifrons and may have been worn alone as a cloak fastener.

VM_365 Day 146 Small Saxon jar from Westgate

22nd November 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project, Westgateeditor

VM 146

The image for VM_365 Day 146 shows a mid Saxon handmade jar and its illustration from a site near St Mildred’s Bay, Westgate which was excavated in 2006.

The small handmade jar has an everted-rim and is made in a rough patchy grey/black fabric with a hard ‘gooseflesh’ finish. It is encrusted internally with lime. The external rim diameter measures 100mm. It is an example of an ‘Ipswich’ type ware, characteristic of c.AD.750/75-850 dated assemblages from East Kent.

The jar was found in the same pit as the large fragments of daub shown in Day 145’s article.

VM_365 Day 145 Mid Saxon clay daub from Westgate.

21st November 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project, Westgateeditor

VM 145

Today’s image for Day 145 of VM_365 shows one of the large fragments of daub which was excavated from a mid Saxon site near St Mildred’s Bay, Westgate in 2006.

The picture on the left shows a fragment of daub measuring approximately 15 cm high and you can clearly see the impressions left in the daub from the wooden rods and sails which formed the structure that it covered. The picture on the right is a reconstruction of where the rods and sails would have been placed, using similar diameter pieces of wooden dowel.

These fragments of daub were redeposited in a pit and mixed with a dark grey sooty soil, there was no evidence for an in situ structure. This deposit of daub appears to be from a demolished structure used to fill this pit, possibly used as packing to create a post pad or platform. Other finds from this pit included burnt chalk, burnt flint, animal bone and five sherds of pottery from the same small handmade jar.

We do not know what the original structure would have been but it could have been part of an oven or kiln.

VM_365 Day 144 Anglo Saxon bone pin beater from Westgate

20th November 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project, Westgateeditor

VM 144

The image for Day 144 of VM_365 is of a bone double ended pin beater found in the fill of a pit at a small middle Saxon site excavated near St Mildred’s Bay, Westgate in 2006.

Pin beaters were used to beat down threads while using a warp weighted loom.

The pin beater is made of bone or ivory and measures 121 mm long, 3mm at its narrowest point at the end and 8mm at its widest point at the centre. It has an ovoid, slightly flattened profile and has been polished through use to a very smooth and glossy finish. Both ends have been carved to form a point.

This pin beater was found in the fill of a rectangular pit along with fragments of burnt daub, animal bone and marine shell, as well as a single pottery sherd from a jar dating between 450-700 AD.

Other finds from the same site included large fragments of burnt daub with rod and sail impressions and an iron lock mechanism possibly from a chest or casket.

VM_365 Day 142 Anglo Saxon bronze casket handle from Sarre

18th November 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, In the Store, Sarre, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

Bronze casket handle from Anglo-Saxon grave at Sarre

The image for Day 142 of VM_365 is of a bronze handle, which may have been attached to a casket placed in a grave at the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Sarre. The small amount of intact bone that remained in the grave (G. 286) suggested that it contained an adult. Other finds associated with the burial were small muticoloured glass beads in a range of sizes that probably once formed a necklace.

The handle shown in the image is made from a bar which is rectangular in section along most of its length, but at either end has been bent, beaten and filed to form hooks with a more rounded section. The hooks terminate with blunt points at the end of each of the sinuous loops. The hooked ends would have passed under two loops fixed to whatever object it was attached to, allowing it to be carried by the main bar of the handle.

The handle was found along with Iron objects and other copper alloy items including the bronze key that was shown in VM_365 Day 35, leading the excavator Dr. David Perkins to suggest that the various objects might have been fittings associated with a casket. The handle would have been mounted on the top, with a lock plate like the one shown in VM_365 Day 51 mounted on the side, perhaps operated with the key that was in the grave.

The image below shows a reproduction of a Viking Era casket which may be similar to the one in the grave at Sarre:

Reproduction (Viking era) casket with similar handle structure. Source: https://jorvikingi.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/dsc_0021.jpg

VM_365 Day 140 Clench Bolts from an Anglo-Saxon Boat Burial?

16th November 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Minster, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

Iron clench bolts and roves from a structure covering an Anglo-Saxon grave

The image for Day 140 of VM_365 is of a group of iron clench bolts, found in the excavation of an Anglo Saxon grave near Thorne Farm, Minster between 1983 and 1984. Each bolt has a domed head at one end and at the other end the shank passes through a flat lozenge shaped plate, called a rove. The plate held in place by bending and flattening the shank to cover the hole, preventing it from sliding off the shank. Bolts of this type were used as fixings in early planked ships of clinker construction where the covering boards overlap. Perhaps the most important and well known archaeological discovery of an Anglo-Saxon ship built in this way is the Sutton Hoo ship. The bolt and rove act as a clamping rivet, holding two overlapping planks tightly between the domed head and the tightly clamped plate. Eighteen bolts of this type were distributed throughout the fill of the grave and in the soil in the wider area around the grave.

The gaps between the bolt heads and the roves from the grave measure approximately 60mm and appear to have been used to fasten wooden planks together in some form of structure that was used to cover the grave, impressions of wood were visible in the corroding iron of the bolts.

It is difficult to reconstruct what form the grave covering took, whatever covered the grave was bigger than the cut containing the burial. It has been suggested that because these bolts were commonly used in shipbuilding, the covering structure could possibly have been a small wooden boat, or a piece of a larger boat. Another possibility is that a sort of sea-chest, which a sailor may have kept his personal equipment in, might have been constructed with clench bolts in the same way as ships were. Perhaps old sailors were finally laid to rest with under the weathered and worn fragments of shipwrecks, small boats and even the sea-chests that would have formed such an important part of their lives.

Reference

Perkins, D. R. J. 1985. TheMonkton Gas Pipeline: Phases III and IV, 1983-84. Archaeologia Cantiana Volume CII, 43-69.

Brookes S. 2007. Boat-rivets in Graves in pre-Viking Kent: Reassessing Anglo-Saxon Boat-burial Traditions, Medieval Archaeology, 51

You can read the PDF report of Stuart Brookes’ article here

VM_365 Day 127 Viking period polished and perforated shale disc

3rd November 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Ramsgate, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, Viking, VM_365 Projecteditor

Kimmeridge shale perforated disc, later Saxon or Viking period.

Our image for Day 127 of VM_365 is of this disc of Kimmeridge shale, found at Cliffsend, Ramsgate near the former shore of the Wantsum channel.

Kimmeridge oil shale is easily worked and the black surface of the material could be polished to a glossy sheen, making it attractive throughout history for manufacturing decorative objects and ornaments. In this case the ground conditions in the deposit where the disc was found have caused the surface to become pitted and rough. The disc may have been a personal ornament or been combined with other materials into a decorative or practical object.

The disc was found in a plough truncated ditch and the pottery and rubbish found in association with it suggest it probably dates to the 8th or 9th century, one of the rare finds from this Later Anglo-Saxon or Viking period in Thanet’s archaeological record.

VM_365 Day 120 Anglo-Saxon Decorated Strap ends from Sarre

27th October 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, In the Store, Sarre, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

VM 120 Today’s image for VM 365 Day 120 shows two decorated strap ends found in grave 276 at Sarre in 1990.

These were the only objects found in the grave that had been heavily disturbed, probably in the Anglo Saxon period. All the skeletal remains were piled at one end and it was not possible to determine the sex or age of the individual from the bones that survived.

These bronze strap ends are a matching pair and have been beautifully decorated with a ring and dot motif. Similar strap ends have been found in grave 98 at the Bucklands cemetery at Dover although the Sarre examples are more ornate.

VM_365 Day 119 Anglo Saxon Spearhead from Sarre

26th October 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, In the Store, Sarre, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

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.