The Keys to the Past

by Gail Huganir

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The British Museum contains some wonderful artefacts for anyone interested in ancient Britain. Be warned, though, if you go looking for items covered in this article, as some will not be available to view this spring, or even later.

When I visited the Prehistoric and Romano-British Collection last November, certain items had already been removed from current display in preparation for the move to the new Prehistoric and Romano-British rooms. As a result, the galleries have a dilapidated air about them, which detracted from my enjoyment. For instance, it is almost impossible to view the Lindow Man properly as he is poorly displayed. I look forward to seeing the prehistoric collection more imaginatively displayed in the new gallery rooms. British Heritage will bring readers more up-to-date details as work progresses.

However, there are some truly memorable items in the British Museum, which deserve mention in our special Ancient Britain issue. The present gallery devoted to ‘man before metals’ shows items made by early man. One of the most interesting is a section of the Sweet Track, a pathway of wooden hurdles laid across a Somerset marsh nearly 6,000 years ago to permit movement across the wet land. Also in the museum’s collection are the Folkton Drums, three carved chalk cylinders with eye and eyebrow markings, found beside the skeleton of a five-year-old child in a tomb of the early Bronze Age (c. 2200 BC) in North Yorkshire. As with many of the very early artefacts, we do not know the true story behind them, and can only guess at their significance and meaning. They are intriguing keys to the past but we are still seeking the right keyholes.

A charming item, still on display at the museum, and more easily understood than the drums, is a small gold cup, about 3.3 inches high, which was discovered in a Bronze-Age burial mound at Rillaton, Cornwall, in 1837. Also in the grave were a fine bronze dagger and beads. The British Museum Souvenir Guide says the body of this cup was beaten from a single piece of gold in about 1500 BC, and it is one of only three such cups ever to have been found in temperate Europe. The burial mound was on land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, and the finds, being a treasure trove, were sent to King William IV. The cup, according to the British Museum’s Guidebook, then disappeared, only to turn up again after the death of George V. It was found on his dressing table, where it had served as a receptacle for His Majesty’s collar studs!

Dr. I. H. Longworth, former Keeper of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities in the British Museum, says in his book, Prehistoric Britain, that perhaps the most spectacular of all objects that have survived from this period comes from North Wales. It is a cape of beaten gold, 9.3 inches high, found in a grave at Mold in Flintshire in 1833. The cape covered the bones of a skeleton encased in a stone cist buried beneath a round mound of earth and stone. Made from a single sheet of gold, the cape is covered in embossed decoration, conveying the idea of multiple strands of beads. Dr. Longworth points out how the rows of holes, which follow the upper and lower edges of the cape, show that the gold was once attached to an inner organic lining, presumably of leather, and stiffened internally at the base with a strip of sheet bronze, fragments of which survive. The ceremonial nature of the cape is confirmed by the fact that anyone who wore it would have been unable to move his upper arms.

The Lindow Man appears to have been a victim of a different type of ceremony. According to the Museum Guidebook, he was found in a peat-bog in Cheshire in 1984, and probably dates from the Iron Age, c. 300 BC. Unfortunately, a peat-cutting machine sliced the naked body in half. But medical and forensic scientists have extensively examined what remains. It seems he was the victim of a ritual killing. A blow to the head stunned him, then he was garrotted with a twisted cord, and finally his throat was cut. He was then thrown into a shallow pool at the marsh edge. Dr. Longworth points out that he was no ordinary peasant, as his nails were well manicured. His real identity remains a mystery.

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