Who is Senuna?
Most of the leaf-shaped plaques have been stamped with a standard image of a gabled shrine with Minerva, the well-known Roman Goddess of Wisdom (as well as other things), standing within it in a typical pose. But beneath the image, in the space left for an inscription, the plaques have been dedicated to a different, previously unknown goddess, Senuna.
One plaque is dedicated by a woman called Lucilia, who ‘willingly and deservedly fulfilled her vow’ to the goddess, another two plaques are inscribed:
‘Servandus Hispani willingly fulfilled his vow to the Goddess
Se(nuna)’ (DSE SERVANDVS HISPANI V S L)
It seems clear that Senuna was either a goddess linked to Minerva, or perhaps the local ‘version’ of the same deity.
It wasn’t initially clear to the archaeologists who the statuette represented, as any potentially distinguishing features had broken or corroded away. But incredibly, a year after the original hoard was found, the archaeological excavation unearthed the base of the same statue, and it had the name ‘Senuna’ inscribed on it. This mysterious silver figure is the only known representation of Senuna. The statue’s face has been lost, but the back of the figure shows a full-length draped garment, probably a dress, and the woman’s hair tied neatly in a bun at the nape of her neck.
Burial
A large number of finds were made during the archaeological excavations that followed Alan’s discovery, revealing evidence of centuries of ritual activity in the same area. The hoard itself wasn’t inside the shrine building, but buried in a shallow hole on its own. At some point between 200 and 400AD, it seems that a temple official collected up the finest gold and silver gifts from the shrine, carefully packed them in a cloth bag, and buried them a short distance away.
We won’t ever know why the valuables were taken out of the shrine, but it may be linked to conflict between newly converted Roman Christians and the people who continued to worship the old gods, including Senuna. For whatever reason, the person who buried the hoard never returned and so the sacred offerings to this British goddess lay undisturbed for more than 1,600 years.
It’s a tantalising possibility that there may be many other British gods and goddesses that we don’t yet know about.
See also:
Cautopates Figurine
County Durham River Assemblage
Ringlemere Cup
A gold drinking vessel buried in a lost mound
Date: 1700–1500BC, Bronze Age
Where, when and how found: Ringlemere, near Sandwich, Kent; 2001; metal detecting
Finder: Anonymous
Where is it now? British Museum, London
www.britishmuseum.org
In 2001, the finder was studying archaeology as an adult learner and continuing his hobby of metal detecting – a passion he’d been enjoying for more than eight years. He was searching a recently harvested potato field when he got a strong signal from his machine. He dug down into the soil and saw a shining gold cup. It had been hit by modern farm machinery so was crushed along its side, but it was immediately clear that this was something very special and probably ancient. If he hadn’t found it when he did, it would have almost certainly been utterly destroyed by the next round of ploughing.
The finder took the squashed cup home and did some quick research – he discovered one similar cup had been unearthed in the 1830s in Rillaton, Cornwall, and was now a celebrated item in the British Museum collection dating to the prehistoric Bronze Age. The finder called Michael Lewis, his local Finds Liaison Officer, and the farmers who owned the land, and reported his amazing discovery.
Ritual cups
Gold is a prized substance across most cultures and throughout history. It’s rare, and in its pure state it doesn’t tarnish, fade or react to any other substance. It’s soft enough to work easily and in the hands of a skilled craftsperson it can be formed into any number of breathtaking pieces. The Ringlemere Cup is one of these pieces – beaten out from a sheet of thick gold, with a wide strip of gold for the handle, it weighs 184g and is about 82% pure gold and 10% silver, which is a common metal mix for naturally-occurring gold found in rivers. It has a simple corrugated design, and tiny diamond-shaped rivets to fix the handle in place. Intriguingly, its base is rounded, meaning that it can’t stand up on its own. It would either have had some kind of stand to hold it upright, or it was designed to never be put down – perhaps passed from person to person in a ceremony, or held in the hands of one high-status individual.
The Ringlemere Cup dates to the Bronze Age, a period that begins around 2400BC and continues until the Iron Age, which is marked by the introduction of iron-making technology, in around 800BC. The Ringlemere Cup is from the middle of the Bronze Age period, around 1700–1500BC, making it at least 3,500 years old. Prompt reporting to the PAS meant that a thorough excavation of the site could be completed. An initial assessment turned into a five-year project, with geophysics surveys, multiple seasons of excavation, fieldwalking and organised metal-detector surveys. The results have put this incredible cup into an equally remarkable context.
The ploughed-out mound
A tiny rise in the farmer’s field, the area that the finder had been searching, proved to be the remains of a ploughed-out type of monument known as a round barrow, over 50m in diameter. It appears that the first version of the monument was a timber structure, and then a ‘henge’ was built – a circular ditch and bank with a small entrance passage. This dated from the Neolithic, the late Stone Age, up to 2,000 years before the Ringlemere Cup came into existence. Other smaller monuments and circles were built around the large henge, and later a soil mound, the round barrow, was built right at the heart of the site.
The archaeologists had thought that they would get evidence to show that this was a Bronze Age burial mound which people had sited inside an already-ancient monument, but no evidence of a grave pit, skeleton or cremation has been found. This might be because it simply hasn’t survived the passage of time, with generations of farmers ploughing the mound flat, or it might be because there never was any burial, and this mound was for some other purpose.
The archaeological excavation also showed that Anglo-Saxon people in the 400s and 500s AD had used the field for burials. It looks like an ordinary farmer’s field now, but for more than forty generations, this site was very special.
“The archaeological excavation also showed that Anglo-Saxon people in the 400s and 500s AD had used the field for burials”
European union
The extensive investigation of the Ringlemere field revealed large scatters of flints and early pottery, and also, significantly, two amber artefacts near to the site of the cup. Amber was mined from along the Baltic Sea coast – modern-day Poland, Germany and Lithuania – and traded westwards to prehistoric tribes across France, Spain and Britain. The people in Kent at that time appear to have been at the midpoint in a prestigious trade network that stretched from continental Europe into west England and Ireland. Ideas, people and precious goods flowed through their hands from across the sea, and it’s likely that they were considered to be important and wealthy people.
We often try to understand prehistoric people and their allegiances with a modern map in our minds, but it doesn’t always help: the British Isles weren’t a united region, and the sea wasn’t considered a barrier – it was an opportunity to travel and trade. People in Kent were much more closely aligned to communities who lived along the coasts of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and north-west Germany, than with people in west and north Britain. Several precious vessels like the Ringlemere Cup have been found across north-west Europe, made from gold, silver, amber and shale. Most of these cups are from sites along the sea coast, which suggests that these cups were an especially important tradition for this network of coastal communities.
Although we don’t have standing monuments from this period in Kent (unlike Wiltshire, where we have Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill, for example), archaeologic
al evidence is pointing to a rich and unique culture that flourished in this area three and a half thousand years ago. The Ringlemere Cup is part of that great society.
The Ringlemere Cup is now displayed next to the only other British example, the majestic Rillaton Cup, in the British Museum, London. It’s a treasure of international importance.
See also:
Carpow Logboat
Horns and Crotal Musical Instruments
Milton Keynes Hoard
North West Essex Ring
Pagan and Christian belief combined
Date: 580–650AD, Early Medieval
Where, when and how found: North-west Essex; 2011; metal detecting
Finder: Anonymous
Where is it now? Saffron Walden Museum hopes to acquire
www.vistsaffronwalden.gov.uk
Visit: Sutton Hoo royal burial site, near Ipswich, Suffolk.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sutton-hoo/
This chunky solid gold finger ring, discovered by a metal detectorist in November 2011, tells the enormous story of religious conversion in the British Isles.
A striking image is on the flat top, the bezel, in a frame of engraved dots: A human figure in profile, probably male, and seemingly naked save for a belt, holds a cross in one hand and a bird in the other. A second bird hangs above the figure’s head. The whole hoop of the ring is decorated – with birds, a pair of very stylised animal heads and an intricate, abstract interlaced pattern. The size of the ring suggests it was worn by a man.
Art and belief
Using the form of the ring and the style of the engraving, it has been dated to the late 500s or early 600s AD, a time when the kingdom of Essex was first under the control of the kings of Kent, and then later overlorded by the kingdom of East Anglia.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written by the early historian and monk known as the Venerable Bede in 731AD, describes attacks on England by several Germanic tribes from continental Europe in the late 300s and early 400s AD. Initial raiding parties were followed by people wanting to stay, and eventually three tribes – the Angles, Saxons and Jutes – set up small kingdoms in what was to become England. The Anglian kingdoms included East Anglia, and eventually gave the name to the whole of Angle-land – England.
Unlike the Romano-British, who were mostly Christian, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were pagan, and worshipped a pantheon of gods and goddesses. It’s been suggested that the man on the ring is the Anglo-Saxon god Woden (the origin of the day name, ‘Wednesday’, Woden’s Day, and aligned with the Norse god ‘Odin’). Woden seems to have been the highest of the gods, linked to carrying off the dead and to fury, poetry and inspiration. It’s not 100% clear how similar beliefs about Woden and Odin were, but in Viking mythology from a few hundred years later, Odin is said to have had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who fly around the world bringing him information. There are also suggestions that Woden himself could transform into a bird, or send his spirit to possess a bird’s body. The link between birds, spiritual power and humans is common in many cultural traditions – until more research is done, we can’t be sure who the ring represents.
But this intriguing figure is also holding a cross, a distinctly Christian symbol. There isn’t evidence for the cross shape being meaningful to any of the European tribes before Christianity was introduced.
Bede describes how, in 597AD, the Pope sent a missionary to England to found a church and convert the people. This missionary was St Augustine, and when he landed in England he first visited the court of Æthelberht, the King of Kent, whose wife was a Christian from the Frankish kingdom (which covered modern-day France and some of Germany). Æthelberht converted to Christianity and gave Augustine land to build a church at Canterbury, which is still the centre of English Christianity. Following Augustine and other missionaries, pagan kings across England converted, although it’s not certain that they fully relinquished their attachment to their old gods. According to Bede, some kings worshipped at shrines of the old gods as well as at Christian altars.
But as more Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity and promised at the baptismal font to forsake their pagan ways, the nature of the old gods began to change. Instead of being forgotten, they began to be incorporated into semi-legendary genealogies of the royal families. By the time Bede wrote his history in the 700s AD, Woden had become the great-great grandfather of the fabled first Anglo-Saxon invaders in England, Hengist and Horsa.
These were extraordinary, dynamic times in English history – brutal, warmongering, but also incredibly religious. The mixed symbolism on this ring is unique, and it reveals the complex integration of belief systems at this time.
See also:
Staffordshire Hoard
Holderness Cross
Baldehildis Seal
Rochester Cufflink
A little link to the Merry Monarch
Date: 1660–1700, Post Medieval
Where, when and how found: Rochester, Kent; 2001; metal detecting
Finder: Anonymous
Official valuation: £150
Where is it now? British Museum, London
www.britishmuseum.org
Visit: Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, where King Charles II and Catherine of Braganza spent their honeymoon
www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/
Windsor Castle, where the ceilings of the Queen’s Presence Chamber in the State Apartments portray Catherine as a goddess
This finder was metal detecting a field in Kent in February 2001, when he got a signal and saw a glint in the soil. He pulled out a small, solid silver button with a stamped decoration on one of the discs. The striking decoration is of two touching hearts under a single crown, and it’s probably a cufflink button.
Because it was solid silver and almost certainly more than 300 years old, local Finds Liaison Officer Michael Lewis submitted the little object, weighing just 2g and measuring 15mm across, to the Treasure process. This was the first of its kind ever reported as Treasure – the only similar button had been found in Jamestown, Virginia (USA). But since this find, nearly 200 more buttons have been reported to the PAS, with versions of a crown and heart motif on them. It was an unofficial logo probably first used to celebrate the royal marriage of King Charles II in 1662, and remained popular for decades after.
Charles II, the popular king
Following Charles I’s execution in 1649 England became a Republic, known as the Commonwealth. By 1660 the experiment had failed, much blood had been shed and Parliament eventually invited Charles I’s son, Charles II, to become king – the monarchy was restored. Charles was known as the ‘Merry Monarch’ – compared to the puritanical rule of Cromwell during the Commonwealth, life under Charles was one long party (at least for the rich) with a hedonistic court life and flourishing arts, music and bawdy theatre. Charles favoured religious tolerance, but many powerful figures in his parliament were staunchly anti-Catholic and worked hard to strengthen the power of the Church of England, and penalise Catholics.
It was politically controversial, therefore, when Charles took Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese noblewoman and a devout Catholic, as his wife. The country nonetheless celebrated the marriage of their beloved king, and Royal memorabilia was manufactured and sold around the country, including silver buttons like the one from Rochester. These decorative buttons could have been used alone, or two could be joined together as cufflinks.
The heart symbol has long had associations with courtly and romantic love, as well as being a symbol of fidelity and faith. It also had Catholic overtones – other buttons have the sacred heart image of Jesus Christ on them. Just like now, people in the 17th century were familiar with heart symbols – on packs of playing cards, on love tokens, in coats of arms and in religious paintings. They would have instantly responded to the royal ‘branding’ of this marriage – Catherine and Charles were united, romantically and politically.
“This was the first of its kind ever reported as Treasure
– the only similar button had been found in Jamestown, Virginia (USA)”
It was certainly a good economic match for both countries, but Catherine didn’t speak English and couldn’t officially be crowned Queen because she was Catholic. In terms of their personalities, it wasn’t an obviously solid union either. Catherine, as Queen Consort, slowly won some favour at court with her polite ways and quiet tolerance of Charles’ licentiousness. But Charles continued to unashamedly delight in his mistresses, including Barbara Palmer and Nell Gwynne, and seemed to prioritise horses, hunting and hawking over his pious wife.
The greatest threat to Catherine and Charles’ marriage, however, was in their inability to produce an heir to the throne. Catherine suffered at least three miscarriages and a stillbirth, and it became increasingly clear that she might not give birth to any living children. Charles had had at least twelve illegitimate children with his mistresses, and his courtiers encouraged him to divorce Catherine and remarry someone younger, seemingly more fertile and someone who was definitely not Catholic. Charles refused, however, and stuck by his wife until his death, protecting her from demands that she face trial for treason. Charles converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, an act which perhaps reveals his true affection for his wife and her faith.
Britain's Secret Treasures Page 5