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The Late Bronze Age Hoard from Brough-On-Humber: A Re-Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Stephen Briggs ,
Kevin Leahy  and
Stuart P. Needham
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Extract

The discovery in 1719, at Brough-on-Humber [North Humberside, SE 93 26], of a hoard of Late Bronze Age weapons and casting matrices is described from contemporary manuscript and printed sources. The subsequent passage of its component artefacts through antiquarian collections is carefully documented, and four pieces are recognized as surviving in the British Museum. These comprise two rare two-piece casting moulds together with one example of each casting product. One mould is a Welby, the other a Meldreth, type, formerly provenanced respectively to ‘Yorkshire’ and ‘Quantock Hills, Somersetshire’. All are described in detail and suggestions made as to the casting techniques in which they were employed. The hoard, possibly originally comprising more artefacts than were recorded, was accompanied by a spearhead, a socketed chisel and a tanged awl or spike, now lost. These are attributed to Burgess's ‘Ewart Park phase’ of LBA2, with parallels scattered throughout the north-east, east, south-east and south of England.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 11 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1987

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References

Notes

1 The typology of socketed axes presented here follows that of Schmidt, P. K. and Burgess, C. B., The Axes of Scotland and Northern England, Prahistorische Bronzefunde, xi (7) (Munich, 1981)Google Scholar, and Burgess, C. B. and Miket, R., ‘Three socketed axes from north-east England, with notes on faceted and ribbed socketed axes’, Arch. Aeliana, 5th ser. iv (1976), 1–9Google Scholar.

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18 The sale was by Paterson of London, 19-24 November. We have examined the annotated catalogue in the Coin Room at the British Museum. Details of this and other catalogues cited here are taken from Lugt, F., Repertoire des Catalogues de Ventes (La Haye, 1953)Google Scholar.

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24 Stukeley, W., Itinerarium Curiosum. Or, an Account of the Antiquities and remarkable Curiosities in Nature or Art, observed in travels through Great Britain, 2nd edn. (London, 1776), 11, pl. xcvi. The identity of the compiler of this posthumous edition remains a mystery. We are indebted to Professor Stuart Piggott for discussion of this important pointGoogle Scholar.

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26 Ibid., pl. VII, nos. 2–5, facing 106.

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35 Soc. Antiq. London MS 700 (A. Way MSS), 1, Notebooks, 15 ‘Celts and Celt Moulds’.

36 The mould is illustrated in a drawing prepared for that occasion and now housed in the British Museum, Department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities, portfolio I, fo. 18c.

37 Evans, J., The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1881), 447.Google Scholar Whoever first confused the labels may well have had in mind the palstave and amulet published by Harford, Charles Joseph, ‘An account of some antiquities discovered on the Quantock Hills, in Somersetshire, in the year 1794’, Archaeologia, xiv (1808), 94–8Google Scholar.

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