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This Bronze Age button comes from a hoard of three copper-alloy items that also included two axe heads. One of the axe heads was noticed by a farm worker in 2021, while backfilling a water pipe trench in Lessingham, Norfolk. When a metal-detectorist, with permission to search the field, searched the site two years later, they then recovered an additional axe head, as well as this rare Bronze Age button. It is believed that all three objects were deposited at the same time.
Both axe heads are socketed late Bronze Age variants associated with the south-east of England. They are believed to specifically date to the Ewart Park phase of the Bronze Age, c.950-800 BC. Such axe heads are characterised by a double mouth-moulding, with the upper moulding more prominent than the lower one, which ends in a loop on one side of the body. These are not the first axe heads to be found in the area: another hoard was found in Barton Turf containing a number of similar examples (search for NMS-6DAFAC on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database, https://finds.org.uk).
The button is a more unusual find. Only 19 examples from this period have previously been recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database, and this is only the fourth to have been found in Norfolk (the others are NMS 960333, NMS-D02D45, and NMS-160212). It features a small central boss forming the high point, which is surrounded by a depressed concentric ring and then an outer raised ring. Two similar buttons were found in the Reach Fen Hoard in Cambridgeshire in 1867, along with a sword and spear fragments which also date to the Ewart Park phase of the late Bronze Age.
For more information about the hoard, see https://finds.org.uk/pas/recorded-find/NMS-914502 or search for NMS-914502 on the PAS database.
The Portable Antiquities Scheme is an initiative to encourage the recording of archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales. For more information on the Scheme, and to browse its database of almost 1.8 million finds, visit https://finds.org.uk. Information on this find was provided by Helen Geake – Finds Liaison Officer for Norfolk.
Text: Kathryn Krakowka / Image: Norfolk County Council
