Unearthing an ‘idol’

This carved figurine was nearly mistaken for a degraded piece of wood when archaeologists found it buried in a boundary ditch near Twyford, Buckinghamshire, during work on the HS2 project. As the team from Infra Archaeology (working for HS2’s contractor, Fusion JV) continued excavating, though, they found that the 67cm-tall and 18cm-wide object bore intriguing human-like features, including a head (slightly rotated to the left), legs, and traces of what may be a representation of a tunic. Prehistoric anthropomorphic items made of wood represent rare finds in British archaeology, possibly partly because their organic materials seldom survive. A wooden limb, perhaps a Roman votive off