Britain's Secret Treasures
Page 9
Along the sides of the pendant are the names of the Three Kings from the Nativity story – Jasper, Melchior and Balthasar (IASPAR MELCIOR BALTASAR). Along the fourth side is a leaf-shaped decorative pattern. The Three Kings were associated with healing charms, especially to protect from fever and the ‘falling-down sickness’, which we now know to be epilepsy.
When the pendant was found, the back compartment had been squashed shut. Careful restoration at the British Museum enabled it to be opened again, and the contents of the reliquary were analysed. There were no fragments of wood inside, but instead, matted plant root fibres and unprocessed flax stems. The significance of these fibres remains a mystery, but they might be linked to the plants depicted on the reliquary itself.
A reliquary this small was designed for private prayer and contemplation, as well as to physically declare the owner’s religious devotion. It’s a very personal treasure, and a remarkable 500-year-old survival.
See also:
Clonmore Shrine
Ursula’s Virgin Badge
Canterbury Pilgrim Badges
Putney ‘Brothel’ Token
A saucy token from Roman London
Date: Around 1–50AD, Roman
Where, when and how found: Thames foreshore, London; 2011; metal detecting/mudlarking
Finder: Regis Cursan
Where is it now? Donated to the Museum of London
www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Get involved: Thames Discovery Programme and Foreshore recording group
www.thamesdiscovery.org
To get a licence for mudlarking and metal detecting, contact the Port of London Authority
www.pla.co.uk
No permit is required for walking on the foreshore and ‘eyes only’ searching
NOTE: River foreshores can be very dangerous – always plan your visit, make sure you can get off the riverside quickly, and beware of environmental hazards – cold water, dangerous and sharp items on the foreshore, wash from vessels and water-borne disease
The Thames foreshore is one of the most interesting archaeological sites in Britain. Ninety-five miles long, the ‘foreshore’ is the area of the riverbank that’s covered at high water and exposed at low water.
There are known archaeological sites along the length of the Thames, but twice-daily tides and the thousands of tonnes of water that move across the riverbed every day mean that it’s a very dynamic site. Archaeological evidence and artefacts are exposed with every tide, while others are washed away or destroyed.
The earliest evidence we have for human activity along the Thames is early, around 10,000 years old, but it’s likely that this great river has been a focus for early humans ever since we first wandered out of Africa and across Europe.
Roman London
The Romans arrived in Britain, or Britannia, as they would have called it, in 43AD led by the Emperor Claudius. Their presence here changed British society forever. When the Roman invaders arrived, the native British tribes had two choices – join in, or fight back. Many tribes in the south-east developed diplomatic, military and trade relationships with the Roman newcomers, others were beaten into submission.
London, or Londinium, quickly developed into a bustling, cosmopolitan hub of activity. Citizens and slaves from across the Roman Empire rubbed shoulders with local Britons on the streets of London. Soldiers were sent off to Hadrian’s Wall and the Welsh borders to guard the wild frontiers of the Empire, and traders brought in Britain’s finest assets to be sold off around the Empire – wool, slaves and agricultural produce.
Alongside the traders, craftsmen, soldiers and politicians of the era were the ladies engaged in the ‘oldest profession’ – prostitution. Throughout history there have been rules and taboos on who can have sex with whom, and the Romans were no different to us in that matter. Faithful marriage between one man and one woman was considered to be the ideal, but many people, just like now, enjoyed a bit on the side. And from the evidence we have, it seems that Romans liked bawdy humour, dirty jokes and saucy pictures, even though it wasn’t considered quite ‘appropriate’ in polite society. This coin-shaped token, a spintria, demonstrates that.
Mudlarking
In previous centuries, ‘Mudlarks’ were some of the poorest people in London, earning a meagre living scavenging and reselling trinkets and scrap from the Thames river mud. Nowadays, mudlarks are members of a prestigious society, searching the Thames for archaeological treasures. They need to hold a licence from the Port of London Authority.
Regis Cursan, a licensed mudlark, was metal detecting on the river near Putney when he picked out this copper alloy disc. Just under 2cm across and weighing 4g, it has a design stamped on each side. On one side is a rather unusual version of the number 14 (Roman numerals would normally show XIV, rather than XIIII), and on the other side are a man and a woman in an intimate coupling. Regis had first thought he’d found an odd coin, but when he took it home and searched online, he realised he’d found something very special that day. Only one other spintria has ever been found in the UK, in Skegness. Regis immediately contacted the Finds Liaison Officer at the Museum of London, Kath Creed, and handed the token over to the museum conservators. He’s now generously donated the token to the Museum, and it’s on public display alongside other artefacts revealing life in Roman London.
The uses of spintriae
There are two competing theories about Regis’ find. The first interpretation is that it is a token that would be used in a brothel. You’d tell the ‘receptionist’ what you wanted, pay your money, and get a token that showed in pictures what you had paid for. Handing that over to your lady of choice, there’d be no confusion over the services required, even if you didn’t speak the same language because you were from two different parts of the cosmopolitan Roman Empire. These tokens have been found throughout the Roman world, and most depict sexual acts, and have a number on the other side. So is the Putney token a novel solution to a time before pocket-size travel dictionaries and smart phone translation apps?
The infinitely more likely explanation is that this 2,000-year-old token is part of a game, and the kinky couple are a bit of saucy decoration. No spintria tokens have been found with a number greater than 16. We don’t know what the game was; it’s possible that, like a modern pack of playing cards, the tokens could have been used to play all sorts of different games.
The Putney ‘brothel’ token may have been produced in Britain, but it’s more likely that it was imported from elsewhere and could have been made before 43AD. We can’t know whether it was lost in or near the Thames in Roman times, or at some point since. What’s almost certain is that this little piece of the Roman past would have been lost forever if Regis hadn’t been metal detecting that day. That, he says, is why he keeps mudlarking. As you walk along the shoreline of the ancient Thames, you never know what you’ll find next.
See also:
Syston Knife Handle
Horns and Crotal Musical Instruments
Baldehildis Seal
SOUTH WEST, WALES AND BORDERS
THE SOUTH WEST AND THE BORDER COUNTIES of Shropshire and Herefordshire are lands at the edges of England. Wales is proudly and determinedly beyond England. The shared roots of the Celtic languages reflect the early links between Ireland, Wales, the South West peninsula and France, as well as the sense of cultural and political independence.
In the South West, beyond the marshy levels of Somerset and the temperate farmland of Dorset, are the vast, bleak, high grounds of Exmoor, Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor which block the way to all but determined overland travellers. The granite outcrops of Dartmoor reach a 621m peak at High Willhays, and plunge into dramatic gorges and valleys. Exmoor is gritstone and slate, bracken-covered and unforgiving. The Dartmoor Sword and the Nether Stowey Hoard are discoveries that confirm that even though some of the South West is remote, it has seen its share of the darker moments in our national history.
Wales has its own geographical challenges, i
ncluding its central spine of high ground running from Snowdon, the highest peak in England and Wales, at 885m, to the Brecon Beacons in South Wales. Culturally and politically, the Wales border has been hugely significant. Yet where there has been conflict, there can also be a strong sense of community. The people who drank together from the Langstone Tankard surely embodied what it means to share a cultural identity. Perhaps the likely owner of The Raglan Ring felt a wrench from the community when he dropped his Welsh name and embraced Englishness to support his king.
The central area of Wales is now thinly populated. The majority of people live along the coast or in the south. As industry and farming have changed, the distribution of people and communities has followed suit.
This is also true in Cornwall, where tin mining began in prehistoric times. It hooked the Cornish natives into a rich and prestigious trade network that stretched across France, Britain and Ireland that’s hard to imagine now.
The Roman historian Diodorus the Sicilian wrote in around 60–30BC, that, ‘the inhabitants of Britain who dwell about the promontory of Belerion [Cornwall] are especially hospitable to strangers and have adopted a civilised manner of life because of their intercourse with merchants and other peoples’. Although there are barriers to land travel in this region, the sea always offers an alternative route. The Llanbedrgoch Viking Treasure is proof positive.
The coastlines of the region are radically varied. Wild coasts facing the full assaults of the Atlantic, along the Gower in South Wales, and the north coasts of Cornwall and Devon, deliver some of the most terrifying sea states in the British Isles. The Isles of Scilly, 40km west of Cornwall, have been a welcome sight to many seafarers. But HMS Colossus didn’t find the shelter she needed. Around these coasts, there are many shipwrecks we don’t know about, and plenty where no evidence survives. The Colossus site is unavoidably deteriorating – we only have it for a short while, and then this secret treasure really will be lost.
Other treasures from this region are small and personal, and it’s sheer chance that they were discovered – from the Mourning Ring and Farthing Pendant from Shropshire to the Toy Cannon from Somerset. These are secret and precious treasures we can all admire.
Nether Stowey Hoard
Civil War silver hidden for 350 years in a garden
Date: Probably buried during the English Civil War, 1642–51, Post Medieval
Where, when and how found: Nether Stowey, Somerset; 2008; Chance find when metal detecting for a lost bracelet
Finder: Arthur Haig
Official valuation: £38,000
Where is it now? Museum of Somerset, Taunton
Get involved: Two major reenactment societies bring the Civil War era to life for participants and visitors: English Civil War Society,
www.ecws.org.uk; Sealed Knot
www.thesealedknot.org.uk
Arthur Haig was metal detecting, helping look for a lost bracelet, when he accidentally located a hoard of silver. Four solid silver spoons, a goblet and a salt pot known as a ‘bell salt’, all dating to the 1600s, had been concealed in an earthenware vessel and buried in the ground.
All the evidence points to this being a hoard buried for safekeeping, but for some unknown reason, the hoard was never retrieved. The dates make it likely that this hoard was buried because of the English Civil War.
The items
The spoons all have a crowned leopard’s head stamped on to them, the traditional hallmark symbol that indicates they were made in London. Three of them have the same hallmark letter, ‘v’, for the year 1617, and the fourth has a ‘k’ within a square shield, representing the year 1587. It’s slightly shorter and was made by a different silversmith. All four spoons are marked with the initials of their owner on their backs – a ‘G’ and an ‘A’, with a ‘C’ above, pricked out in tiny dots. This represents the initials of the husband (G) and wife (A) who had a surname beginning with a C who owned the spoons.
English spoons have a distinctive evolution of style, and the four Nether Stowey spoons are known as ‘slip top’ spoons. The handle, or ‘stem’, has a hexagonal cross-section, and the end appears to be cut off at an angle, rather than finishing in a knob or other decorative shape. The term ‘slip top’ comes from the word ‘slipped’ meaning ‘cut’, and a slip top spoon looks like it has been cut across the top. Spoons were still prestigious items at this time, but rich families would have easily afforded a matching set of silver spoons like these.
The goblet was found in two pieces – the stem and the beaker, and the beaker section also has the ‘G.A.C.’ initials on it, suggesting all the objects had one owner. The hallmarks show this piece was made in 1633 in London, and the stem of the goblet was turned on a lathe to make the fine and even shape.
The salt pot has been designed in the shape of a bell, hence it being called a ‘bell salt’. It’s made from three separate pieces that stack one over another – two lower tiers for holding fine ground salt, and a pepper pot at the top with a screw-on perforated lid so pepper can be shaken out.
The two middle tiers don’t have the same date or maker’s marks as each other, suggesting that they weren’t originally made as a set. They don’t fit together perfectly, but that might be due to them spending almost 400 years in the ground, or because they were slightly knocked out of shape during their use.
The ceramic pot that the silverware was packed into came out of the ground in twenty-four sherds, making up about half the original pot. It’s a pretty common type of fired and glazed earthenware pot. This itself wasn’t a treasured possession, but simply a container to hold the valuables.
A flat silver strip with three little spherical feet was discovered some weeks later by Arthur detecting on the other side of the same garden – it’s mangled and broken, but is clearly the base of the bell salt. It does raise a question though – the rest of the silverware was neatly packed into the pottery vessel, and it seems unlikely that the bell salt feet would have been intentionally detached and deposited elsewhere. It leads to the suggestion that the hoard was buried very quickly, and with less care than at first seems evident – was the person in grave and imminent danger, or could the Nether Stowey Hoard actually be the stash of looters, rather than worried owners?
The owners
In 1642, England was ripped apart by civil war. Resulting from an extraordinary combination of political, social and religious issues, at heart it was a dispute between King Charles I and his Parliament, about how the State should be governed. Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarian supporters argued that there was no divine right of kings to rule and that the monarchy shouldn’t be able to single-handedly control the nation. Depending on your political allegiances, the conflict between Parliament and the king was either a revolution or a rebellion. Bitter and brutal war broke out across the country, sometimes even splitting families.
Across England, Scotland and Ireland, citizens were terrified – their homes and their lives weren’t safe, and men and boys were press-ganged into military service for both sides. If you supported the wrong side, you could be branded a traitor, have your lands and assets seized, or even be summarily executed. Fighting continued for nine years, tearing the country apart – historians estimate that 100,000 people died from war-related disease and hunger, and at least 90,000 died in actual battle – from a population of just 5 million.
Stowey Court, a stately home just 800m from the hoard findspot, was used by a garrison of Royalist soldiers supporting the king. A note in the earliest surviving parish register for Nether Stowey states that parishioners removed their ‘best goods and things of value’ into the great house during the time of the ‘Great Rebellion’. It was thought that valuables would perhaps be safer under the care of the Royalist soldiers than they would be in the parishioners’ homes. Perhaps they were right, but at some point someone clearly decided to bury some valuables in a hole a short distance away from the garrison. Perhaps they were burying their treasures across more than one hiding spot. It’s
also possible that a soldier with sticky fingers took some of the civilians’ valuables and stashed them elsewhere, or that this hoard is the result of looting elsewhere in the country, and was buried by soldiers once they’d settled at Stowey Court in a respite from the campaign.
“Was the person in grave and imminent danger, or could the Nether Stowey hoard actually be the stash of looters, rather than worried owners?”
The initials on the silverware, G.A.C., suggest that these pieces could be associated with the owners of Stowey Court themselves. During the Civil War the house was owned by Mr Angel Grey and his wife, Catherine. The initials A, C, and G don’t fall in the expected order to represent their names, though, so this is probably an odd coincidence. The mystery of where the silver came from remains unsolved.
What’s certain is that the fear and unrest continued. King Charles I was executed by Parliament on 30 January 1649, but the war continued for another two years and violent recriminations for decades after that. Whoever buried the Nether Stowey silverware wasn’t able to successfully retrieve it – perhaps they died, fled the area, or were simply unable to relocate their hiding spot. Their story is lost to us.
See also:
Hackney WWII Hoard
Silverdale Hoard
Hawking Vervel
Rochester Cufflink
Leopard Cup
An exotic drinking vessel from an early Roman grave
Date: 43–100AD, Roman
Where, when and how found: Llantilio Pertholey, Monmouthshire, Wales; 2002; metal detecting
Finder: Gary Mapps
Where is it now? Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Cardiff