CA Letters 420 – February

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 420

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Mentioning money

I wanted to comment on the excellent article ‘Fields of Gold’ in CA 419.
Snettisham is not only notable for buried torcs but it is also a ‘hot spot’ for coins – less spectacular, maybe, than torcs, but equally intriguing. There are 1,694 coins in total recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database by conducting an Iron Age numismatic search for the parish of Snettisham. Some 236 of these are gold specimens and 1,338 are silver, nearly all of these minted by the Iceni. Although many of the torcs may have been taken out of circulation around 60 BC, the significance of them in tribal culture may not have diminished. Torcs feature in coin imagery: the large issues of Icenian ‘pattern-horse’-type silver units, dating to c.AD 5-43, include an obverse design of torcs to left and right of the back-to-back moon emblem, believed to represent the waxing and waning of the moon. It may be that the wearer of a torc, with its shape mimicking a crescent moon, would have been immediately recognised as special, one of the elite, maybe a royal and/or druidic individual, with supernatural (lunar) powers. Note also the ‘spirit’ embedded in the design, i.e. the hidden sad/happy faces (see CA 341).

Rodney Scarle, Willingham

Concerning Cerne

The review by Helen Gittos in CA 149 of Michael Allen’s edited book on the Cerne Abbas hill-figure did not discuss its proposed redating to the early Middle Ages, derived from Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) and analysis of snail shells of which some were from species that only arrived in Britain after the Norman Conquest: they were found within the half-metre and more of soil alongside the chalk-filled trenches that now outline the Giant.

OSL provided only four dates; OSL 1, the ‘oldest’, has a range from AD 650 to 1310, overlapping with the ‘youngest’, OSL 3, from AD 990 to 1510 – lengths of time that are unexplained. OSL 1 supposedly came from earth scraped away to expose the underlying Middle Chalk and create the outline of ‘Giant 1’, at a time when the ground surface was only a little above the chalk and before the soil containing later medieval snail shells built up – yet no early turf layer shows in the section drawings. And because snails burrow, presumably their shells may be in soil older than the surfaces where they fed. Where could all the soil have come from in the Middle Ages? Not from the summit of Giant Hill, or the monument called the Trendle would have been swept away – and why was no colluvium found by augering in the valley below the figure?

OSL 1 and OSL 3 were only ten centimetres apart, yet the former was supposedly in earth disturbed to create ‘Giant 1’, the latter in what is claimed to have been hill-wash. The four OSL results came from quartz-sand grains, yet none were found in another sample, OSL 8 – so how much sand is there in the downland soil? A small excavation close to the Giant – no need to intrude into it – could search for sand grains, and should also show whether there is an early ground surface sealed by overlying hill-wash.

A remaining problem is the design of the figure: if it is early medieval, why are no images like it cited from the many thousands of paintings, drawings, sculptures and engravings on metal that have survived from 8th- to 11th-century England? Even the Giant’s club seems to be unlike anything in pre-Norman art.

Allen argues that ‘Giant 1’ was kept clear as soil built up around it, creating increasingly deep trenches; to keep those open would have involved considerable labour, even when it was in short supply after the Black Death. Besides, as Katherine Barker points out in the book, such trenches would have been death-traps for sheep. Were trees cut down and their stumps dug out by Cerne Abbey in order to increase their grazing land, leading to the temporary exposure of quartz grains to the light? Or, because all four of the processed OSL samples were taken from very close to the bottom of the chalk filling the Giant’s trenches, could they have leaked out of it, by worm or animal action? The suggestion made in CA 411 that that chalk came from demolished abbey buildings in the 17th century still remains possible, and that the Giant was created not long before it was first recorded in 1694 still seems the best interpretation.

David A Hinton, Southampton

A return to reconstructions

Some further thoughts have occurred to me since you published my letter concerning facial reconstruction from skulls (see CA 412).

Clearly, the technique could not possibly work in the case of Joseph Merrick, the so-called ‘Elephant Man’. Also, with widespread application of DNA analysis to criminal cases, is facial recognition being adopted in a similar fashion? I think not, since any King’s Counsel would highlight the flaws. For centuries, artists have found that the human face projects such a poignant image that tiny changes make all the difference between a good likeness and not.

My view is that attempts are being made to upgrade facial reconstruction, which is so visually appealing, from an interesting art form to a rigorous science, and it cannot possibly succeed.

J P Craddock, Stevenage

Edible Archaeology

I would like to submit, for publication in Current Archaeology, this photo of a cake made by Robert Morgan, the Chairman of the 3D Archaeological Society, our small Yorkshire-based club. (See CA 253, 264, 308, and 337 for other examples of his creations.)

Every year, Robert organises (among other things) a few days away for our members, in different parts of the country. This year we went to Suffolk, and visited Sutton Hoo, which we loved. His cake, made for our Christmas dinner, is of the eponymous helmet and looks amazing. 

It would make him smile, and show our gratitude for his efforts, if you could publish it. 

Janet Waite, Harrogate

CA ONLINE: What you shared with us this month

Damien Shiels @irishacw
My brief review in the latest Current Archaeology is of An Irish Civil War Dugout: Tormore Cave, Co. Sligo. A great book and an important milestone to have a volume like this on a 20th-century conflict

Father Martin Flatman @FrMartinFlatman
Hooray… CA has arrived with an article [not on the cover] on one of my favourite UK Roman sites. Fishbourne, of course!

James Eogan @james-eogan
Recent research on #Fingal’s rich and varied archaeological heritage features twice in the new issue of @CurrentArchaeo. The Drumanagh fig and the TII’s ‘Building on the Past’ by Finola O’Carroll about the archaeological excavations on the N2/M2 Finglas to Asbourne road. 

Write to us at: CA Letters, Current Publishing, Office 120, 295 Chiswick High Road, London, W4 4HH, or by email to: letters@archaeology.co.uk For publication: 300 words max; letters may be edited.