The hoard is believed to have been buried by Roman residents of Camulodunum circa A.D. 61, when the British Iceni tribe under their Queen Boadicea revolted against Roman rule and destroyed the city.
Gold and silver armlets, bracelets, rings and coins were found buried in the remains of a Roman house beneath Williams and Griffin in Colchester.
It is thought they were hidden by their wealthy owner in AD61, when Boudicca’s British tribes burnt down the town.
Colchester Archaeological Trust said it was a “remarkable Roman collection”.
The jewellery was found during renovation work at the shop, which is part of the Fenwick group and currently undergoing a £30m redevelopment.
Philip Crummy, the archaeological trust’s director, said it was discovered three days before the six-month dig was scheduled to end.
It was buried in a layer of red and black debris – the remains of burnt clay Roman walls – found under much of Colchester.
Three gold armlets, a silver chain necklace, two silver bracelets, a silver armlet, a small bag of coins and a small jewellery box containing two sets of gold earrings and four gold finger rings were unearthed by archaeologists.
The “quality” of the jewellery suggested its owner was a wealthy woman and had hidden the jewels to keep them safe from the enemy, Mr Crummy said.
“Boudicca and her army destroyed London and St Albans, though many of their inhabitants had time to escape. The townsfolk of Colchester were not so fortunate.
“They were not evacuated and endured a two-day siege before they were defeated.”
The jewellery has been taken to a laboratory for further examination and cleaning.
In July Mr Crummy’s team discovered human jaw and shin bones under the shop.
They are also believed to date from AD61 and were “likely to be the remains of people who died in buildings set on fire by the British as they overran the town”, Mr Crummy said.
The British Embassy in Washington commemorated the recent 200th Anniversary of the Burning of Washington by tweeting a photo of a cake in the form of the White House with the witty message:
Commemorating the 200th anniversary of burning the White House. Only sparklers this time!
Some Americans were appropriately amused, like Joanna Tompkins who awarded a: hat tip for the sheer ballsiness of this post!
But there are sufficient numbers of the pious and easily-offended out there that, before very long, the Brits were issuing an apology. At least, they did not remove the original tweet, though.
A History of Britain in Thirty-six Postage Stamps tells the rich, layered, and breathtaking history of England through thirty-six of its fascinating, often beautiful, and sometimes eccentric postage stamps. West shows that stamps have always mirrored the events, attitudes, and styles of their time. Through them, one can glimpse the whole epic tale of an empire unfolding. From the famous Penny Black, printed soon after Queen Victoria’s coronation, to the Victory! stamp of 1946, anticipating the struggle of postwar reconstruction—A History of Britain in Thirty-six Postage Stamps is a hugely entertaining and idiosyncratic romp, told in Chris West’s lively prose.
On their own, stamps can be curiosities, even artistic marvels; in this book, stamps become a window into the larger sweep of history.
I have a terrible feeling that A History of Britain in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps may be a hard sell for some readers. But trust me: Chris West’s cultural history is fast paced and engaging, and the organizing principle takes the narrative in all kinds of unexpected directions. Sure, there’s a little light philately in there, but even those who only communicate electronically will be glad they picked it up.
So I guess I have to read it, despite having zero interest in stamps.
Michaela Bowling set a new British side saddle high jump record by clearing 6ft 3in at the The National Show at Aintree on Saturday 27 July.
Riding Laughing Larry, who is blind in one eye, they were just 3in off the world record.
Michaela, a regular showjumper and former point-to-point jockey, has been riding side saddle for a while, but this was only the third time Laughing Larry has been ridden aside.
Ireland’s Susan Oakes, who broke the record last year at 5ft 11in, finished second.
From British Archaeology #131 (July/August): [There was] a Wessex Archaeology dig in 2004-05 at Cliffs End farm in Thanet, a piece of north-east Kent that was an island up until the 16th century when silting finished connecting it to mainland England. What we’re dealing with here is ritual murder, some pretty strange disposal of the dead and ancient Scandinavian migrants. …
[It went] on for 800 years, well into the Middle Iron Age about 200 cal BC. A three-century hiatus during the Early Iron Age, I speculate, may be covered by the part of the feature that hasn’t been excavated.
At least 24 people end[ed] up in sacrificial pits between 1000 and 800: males and females, ages 6 to 55. One large pit sees the following sequence (image above):
1. Redeposited human bones and two new-born lambs
2. Woman over 50, killed by sword blows to the back of the head
3. Another pair of lambs
4. Cow’s head, two children and a teenage girl
5. Cattle foot and bag containing dismembered man, 30-35
6. More redeposited bones from people who died before the pit was dug …
Iron Age practices in the sacrificial pit complex are less intense and intricate: over a period of three centuries, eight people get buried whole and seven disarticulated bone bundles are deposited. One young man is buried on top of half a horse. The bone bundles bear signs of scavenging by dogs.
Who were these people then? Could anybody at Cliffs End get roped in for sacrifice and be denied respectful burial at the whim of the local druid? …
Andrew Millard of Durham University analysed all suitable teeth from 25 individuals. Here’s the geographical breakdown of the sacrificial victims’ area of origin:
36% local
32% southern Norway or Sweden
20% western Mediterranean
12% indeterminate
The reason that you do more than one tooth from the same individual is that teeth form in sequence during gestation, childhood and adolescence. If you move or change your diet during that period, this shows up in the isotope ratios of whatever tooth your body is making at the time. This gave particularly interesting results in the case of an old woman whose disarticulated skull was redeposited in the Late Bronze Age charnel pit discussed above. She was born in Scandinavia, moved to northern Britain as a child, lived a long life and finally ended up as a prop in a religious ritual on Thanet.
More than half of the victims are foreigners. And though more than a third are locals, we don’t know if their parents were locals as DNA hasn’t been done yet. Who travels like this in the 1st millennium BC? Certainly not tourists. Traders do travel, but for a community dependent on long-distance bronze deliveries, it would not be a sustainable strategy to ambush and kill the traders – never mind that these were in all likelihood well organised and armed. My guess is that we’re dealing with slave raiding and slave trade. Goods travelled, and one valuable commodity was slaves. All valuable commodities were appropriate as sacrifices to the gods when that time came.
In the case of the well-travelled old woman, I imagine her being taken from her tribe in southern Norway by Scottish slave raiders, growing up in Scotland, and then being traded on maturity to a Kentish tribe with odd religious practices. She probably gives birth to more slaves there (perhaps a few of the recovered individuals with local isotope signatures) and lives most of her adult life at Cliffs End. Not as a member of the clan, but as property of a clan member. And then comes that final Beltane feast out by the barrows.
