Britain's Secret Treasures

by Mary-Ann Ochota

  This unique treasure was never part of a bigger sculpture. Instead, it was crafted to be freestanding: A haughty man with head tipped back and mouth turned down, neat curly hair, a stylised moustache and a fancy beard twisted into two pointed prongs of hair.

  The bust was made by the lost wax process, a casting technique where a mould is made from a wax model, which is then melted and poured away, to be replaced by molten metal that forms the sculpture.

  Although very rare, other portrait busts have been found in Britain. Bronze busts from Cambridge-shire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Northamptonshire share stylistic elements with the Brackley bust, including the slanting eyes and textured hair. This has led experts to conclude that the Brackley bust was manufactured around 160–200AD in a Romano-British workshop that was creating heads and busts of emperors and deities in a unique provincial style.

  The man represented in the bust is most likely the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who ruled from 161–180AD. He was famous as a philosopher too, and his book Meditations, about how to fulfil your duty and manage conflict, has been cited as a favourite of philosopher John Stuart Mill, the writer and poet Goethe and politician Bill Clinton.

  By comparing the bust profile with other known depictions of Marcus Aurelius, it appears that the bust was designed using a profile image from a coin. The twisted tufts of beard, however, are a distinctly British way of dressing facial hair, and don’t appear on any authorised Roman coins. It’s quite possible that the British craftspeople started with the ‘authorised’ image of the emperor, and then added a certain local flair to his beard.

  The field where John Lewis found the bust is close to a number of known Roman villas. It’s possible that the bust was purchased by a villa owner, as a show of loyalty to Rome or in admiration of the emperor himself; alternatively the bust may have been commissioned for a temple.

  The Marcus Aurelius bust has finally been restored to its rightful status as a find of national significance. Ol’ Blue Eyes was purchased by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 2011 and is on permanent display in the Rome gallery.

  See also:

  Leopard Cup

  Syston Knife Handle

  Cautopates Figurine

  Hallaton Treasure

  A helmet, a hoard and hundreds of pigs

  Date: Mostly around 50BC–50AD, but activity continuing through the Roman period to 4th century AD; Late Iron Age/Roman

  Where, when and how found: Hallaton, Leicestershire; 2000–2005; metal detecting with a local archaeology group

  Finder: Ken Wallace

  Where is it now? Harborough Museum, Leicestershire; also at Hallaton Village Museum, and some artefacts in a travelling exhibition. An online gallery is at

  www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/museums/harboroughmuseum/treasure.htm

  Get involved: Hallaton Field Work Group

  www.leicestershirevillages.com/hallaton/fieldworking-group.html; other local groups include: Hinckley Archaeological Society

  www.fieldwalking.org.uk

  Ken Wallace was metal detecting with his amateur archaeology group, the Hallaton Field Work Group, when he picked up signals for a scatter of Iron Age and Roman coins on a hilltop. The group reported his discoveries, and the site was earmarked for further archaeological investigation. Over the course of the following weeks, and then in successive seasons of excavation and survey, the Hallaton Field Work Group and the University of Leicester Archaeological Services, professionals and skilled amateurs working together, have pieced together the intriguing evidence: this was an open-air 2,000-year old pagan shrine.

  The Hallaton site dates to the late Iron Age and early Roman period. The Iron Age is the period considered to be the end of British Prehistory – it begins with the introduction of iron-working technology after the Bronze Age, in around 800BC, and continues until the time of the Roman invasion of Britain in 43AD. The labels are useful to get a sense of the broad changes that happened, but it’s a relatively arbitrary system that favours technology and non-perishable material because they are clearer in the archaeological record than the ‘Wood Age’ or the ‘Rise of Worshipping Nature Gods Age’. For some people living through these times there was no overnight switch, no revolution, and no big ideological change. In fact, for a few people in the more secluded corners of Britain, the Roman invasion may not have made any difference to their lives at all.

  The Iron Age is a period where lifestyles, quality of life and social organisation were probably very different in different regions of the country. The traditional image, however, has been of a chiefly ruling class, with warriors, artists and priests below them, and agricultural and domestic peasants and slaves living under their regional commander’s protection, but also in his control.

  The finds

  Ken discovered 146 British Iron Age coins and 59 Roman coins from the site. During the excavation that followed, large soil blocks were dug out and taken to the British Museum to be excavated by conservators in the laboratory. In total, the Hallaton Treasure comprises 334 Roman coins, 4,952 Iron Age coins, 6,901 pieces of bone, some glass and pottery and 88 metal artefacts including fragments of silver and copper-alloy brooches, silver and copper ingots, folded silver sheet metal, scrap metal, a silver bowl and the extraordinary fragments of at least one silver-gilt iron cavalry helmet, a very prestigious Roman artefact.

  The excavators first thought the corroded remains of the helmet were a modern bucket, but it soon became clear that this was no ordinary heap of rust. The helmet has been painstakingly conserved and pieced together over ten years and is now on display, revealing how stunning it would have been when it was first placed in the ground. It dates to the first half of the 1st century AD.

  The majority of the Iron Age coins are associated with the Corieltavi group, a federation of smaller tribes who lived across the east Midlands. This was a rich and well-populated area, where people seem to have lived peacefully in large villages. There is evidence that suggests that some communities in the region were building defences at this time, so perhaps not all leaders were pro-Roman, and strategies differed.

  The find also included a number of coins from other tribes across Iron Age Britain, including some issued by the ruler Cunobelin in south-east England. The majority of the coins date from about 20–50AD. The Roman coins include a number dating to before the Conquest, and other silver and bronze coins from throughout the Roman period.

  “On the Hallaton site, the right legs were either buried elsewhere or destroyed in some way”

  It isn’t just the amazing metal finds from Hallaton that have got the experts and amateurs excited. On the site were the bones of 82 slaughtered, quartered and buried pigs, but the experts estimate that up to 300 pigs may be represented across the whole site. Butchered remains suggest that the meat was probably cooked and may have been eaten, but some legs were ‘articulated’, which could mean that they were buried whole with the flesh and sinews still attached and that the meat was not eaten. Taken as a whole assemblage, there’s a shortage of right pig legs – they appear to be missing from the site altogether.

  The fact that the carcasses were missing their right legs is intriguing. Throughout the archaeological record, right-hand and left-hand sides of bodies have different importance – from late Stone Age feasting around Stonehenge to the medieval hunting ritual of ‘unmaking’ a deer, the different sides of carcasses are treated in different ways. On the Hallaton site, the right legs were either buried elsewhere or destroyed in some way.

  The pigs were less than a year old when they were slaughtered, and it’s likely that they were killed and eaten in the winter months.

  The bodies of three dogs were also discovered, sacrificed and buried – perhaps as spiritual guardians of the site. The most complete skeleton shows the dog was placed in a hole with its head drawn back and its feet gathered under it – its feet were possibly bound when it was put in the ground. All three dogs were big – about the size of German Shepherds – and old when they were
killed.

  Only one human bone was found – a broken upper arm bone. Many Iron Age domestic and ritual sites have a smattering of human bones, so their absence from Hallaton is unusual.

  A pair of glass eyes were discovered, perhaps the only surviving remnants of a wooden statue that has long since rotted away, and an elaborate tankard handle.

  From 50BC to the 300s AD, this hill clearly held special importance for the people of Leicestershire. The crucial question is ‘why?’

  Sign of the shrine

  There’s no evidence of a building or structure on the top of the hill, although there may have been a ditch and a wooden palisade fence along the east side.

  The coins and other artefacts were buried in discrete pits across the site at different times, although most of them were near the entranceway and buried during the 30s, 40s and 50s AD. We don’t know whether these were offerings collected from the whole community, or the wealth of one or two high-status individuals.

  What’s certain is that this was a place where ritual deposits of precious artefacts were intentionally buried with no plan to retrieve them. It may have been an open site with no central focus, or perhaps there was a natural feature, a grove of trees, or stones, that was considered sacred – we can’t be sure for certain.

  Access to an internal enclosure may have been limited to special groups of people – priests or chiefs – but the quantity of pigs slaughtered suggests that at least some of the ritual practices involved large groups of the community enjoying a ritual barbeque. Given the age of the pigs at slaughter, perhaps this was a seasonal shrine, celebrating the dark days and the coming of the spring.

  One of the last big deposits was the beautiful Roman helmet, probably placed in the ground around the 40s AD. This was clearly a British shrine, rather than one taken over by Roman worshippers, so the deposit was probably made by a native person. Whether the helmet was a diplomatic gift from the Romans, a stolen trophy, or payment for some kind of mercenary service, we won’t ever know.

  As the Romans extended their control over the east Midlands, activity at the shrine declined but didn’t stop. Hallaton remained a special place for generations of people. Its importance has now been restored.

  See also:

  Crosby Garrett Helmet

  Anarevitos Stater

  Langstone Tankard

  Boar Badge of Richard III

  The find that reveals more about the ‘King in the Car Park’

  Date: 1470–1485, Medieval

  Where, when and how found: Bosworth, Leicestershire; 2009; metal detecting as part of an archaeological investigation

  Finder: Carl Dawson

  Official valuation: £2,250

  Where is it now? Bosworth Battlefield Centre, Leicestershire

  www.bosworthbattlefield.com

  Also visit: A Richard III Museum is planned for Leicester in 2014; Richard III Museum, York

  www.richardiiimuseum.co.uk

  Carl Dawson was in a field two miles from the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre, when he got the signal. The 3cm-long find he unearthed was immediately, obviously important. It was a little badge in the shape of a boar, made of silver, which was once delicately gilded with a thin coating of gold.

  Carl was part of the metal detecting team in the Battle of Bosworth Survey project. The project had received five years’ of Heritage Lottery Funding to bring together surveyors, landscape archaeologists, documentary and medieval warfare experts, as well as a team of metal detectorists to help finally pin down the location of the Battle of Bosworth – the 1485 battle that saw King Richard III killed, more than a thousand men slain, and the English crown claimed by Henry Tudor (King Henry VII).

  Richard III was the last English king to die on the battlefield, and his grave was recently, and famously, found in a car park in Leicester, a spot which had originally been the monastic Church of the Greyfriars. The discovery of his remains captured people’s imaginations; this boar badge is one of the finds that has revealed more about the last, tragic movements of the fallen king.

  Wars of the Roses

  Between 1454 and 1485, a vicious civil war raged between two branches of the same royal family – the House of York and the House of Lancaster – who both claimed the English throne. At the time, it was known as the Cousins’ War. We know it as the War of the Roses; the white rose of York versus the red rose of Lancaster.

  Between 1454 and 1471, thirteen battles were fought, costing the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people who were forced to fight for their noblemen. Edward IV, from the House of York, came out as the initial winner, and England enjoyed relative peace until his death in 1483. When Edward died, his brother Richard was made Lord Protector, tasked with ensuring that his brother’s young son was safely crowned king.

  Prince Edward was just twelve years old when he was recognised as king. But powerful nobles saw an opportunity. Young Edward was publicly declared illegitimate, his uncle Richard claimed the crown and took the title King Richard III. Edward and his nine-year-old brother, Prince Richard, were taken to the Tower of London, allegedly for their own protection, and were never seen again.

  Richard was accused of ordering the murder of his nephews, the Princes in the Tower, a charge that was never resolved. His reputation is often debated – Shakespeare portrayed him as a deformed and vicious man, hungry for power and willing to do anything to secure it. Others represent an excellent and experienced fighter and leader with loyal followers, who had a legitimate claim to the throne.

  Between 1470 and 1485, the white boar was used by the court and followers of Richard III as a symbol to show their allegiance. It’s thought that the reason Richard used a boar was because of a play on words: Richard’s family was the Royal House of York, and the Roman Latin name for York city was Eboracum, which sounds a bit like ‘boar’ in English. Hence, supporters of Richard would wear a boar badge to show who they were loyal to, normally on their tunic or cap.

  Royal accounts show that the King paid for thousands of boar badges to be made for his coronation in July 1483. Most badges would have been made from pewter or copper alloy – but the badge Carl discovered in Bosworth is gilded silver – clearly owned by a high-ranking nobleman, perhaps even someone in Richard’s inner retinue of knights.

  By 1485, the forces of the House of Lancaster were gathering again, and Richard’s exiled cousin, 28-year-old Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, returned from France to lay claim to the English throne. It resulted in a pivotal battle in the War of the Roses, fourteen years after the last one.

  The Battle of Bosworth

  Henry Tudor had gathered a small rebel army – French mercenaries who would fight for whoever paid them, some English exiles, and Welsh supporters. In all, his army numbered about 5,000 men. King Richard commanded 12,000 men, and marched out of Leicester to intercept Henry on his way towards London.

  On the 22 August 1485, the two armies engaged one another near Ambion Hill, Bosworth. After ferocious fighting, Richard saw an opportunity to personally attack Henry. If he killed Henry outright, the battle would be won. Richard galloped towards Henry’s retinue, but his lance broke on impact with a standard bearer. At that point, a group of soldiers who had been waiting to see which side to support, decided to join Henry’s forces against the King, and moved towards Richard and his retinue. Richard was instantly and overwhelmingly outnumbered, his horse became mired in a marshy area, and he was unseated. Shakespeare immortalises Richard’s final moments in his play Richard III: anguished and betrayed, Richard cries out ‘A horse, a horse, my Kingdom for a horse!’

  Richard was quickly killed, his crown removed and his body stripped and brutalised. Contemporary records state that the dead king was tied across the back of a horse and ridden into Leicester. His body was laid out for people to see that he was really dead, and then he was finally, quietly, laid to rest in Greyfriars church in Leicester. The famous, recent excavation has finally and definitively identified this site, and recovered K
ing Richard’s remains from underneath a council car park. Once the scientific analyses are complete, he’ll be reburied in consecrated ground.

  Richard’s skeletal remains show he had a severe scoliosis (curvature) of his spine. It would probably have meant that one shoulder was always higher than the other, and it ties in with contemporary descriptions of him being a ‘hunchback’. The fatal injury he sustained is a massive trauma to the back of the head, probably caused by blows from a sword and a halberd (a two-handed pole with a blade on one side and a spike on the other). Further non-fatal injuries may be ‘humiliation injuries’ inflicted on the King’s dead body as he was carried off the battlefield and into Leicester.

  After the battle, Henry Tudor was crowned king, and quickly married Richard’s niece, Elizabeth, in order to join the two warring houses of York and Lancaster. Yorkist revolts continued for another fifteen years, but failed to damage the King – the Tudor family were on the throne, and they would continue to hold power for 122 more years.

  The lost battlefield

  Despite the Battle of Bosworth being so famous and so important, experts weren’t certain of the exact location of the battlefield. Contemporary accounts conflicted, and historical maps weren’t detailed enough to pinpoint the site. It’s been suggested that for the first couple of hundred years, the site was so well known that no one thought it necessary to document it. As time passed, the detail was lost from memory.