A Late Iron Age Burial from Chilham Castle, near Canterbury, Kent

Abstract

During the spring of 1993 Mr Darren Nichols was searching land near Canterbury with his new metal detector when he made a most interesting discovery. At a shallow depth he unearthed a burial, containing a decorated bronze mirror, a bronze brooch, and the remains of a pot holding cremated bone. The mirror was subsequently identified as being of Iron Age date, bearing a characteristic engraved Celtic design on its reverse. Realising the importance of the find, Mr Nichols reported the discovery to local archaeologists who were able to visit the site and re-excavate the find-spot. These investigations produced a second brooch and further sherds from the very fragmented cinerary urn.In July 1994 the metalwork from the burial was passed to Dr Ian Stead of the British Museum for detailed study and recording. A year later the finder sold the mirror and brooches at a Sotheby's auction (Sale LN5398, Lot 3) to a private collector, who has very kindly agreed to details of the objects being published here.

The girl with the chariot medallion: a well-furnished, Late Iron Age Durotrigian burial from Langton Herring, Dorset

“…The first, burial 13 at King Harry Lane, St. Albans was assessed as male (Stirland in Stead and Rigby 1989) although no information is given as to how this conclusion was reached. The second, discovered at Chilham Castle, Kent in 1993 was identified as female on the basis of the small size of a mandibular condyle (Parfitt 1998), a tentative indicator at best. Of the seven inhumations analysed since 1960, one, from Bryher on the Isles of Scilly, furnished with a sword and shield as well as a mirror, proved too poorly preserved for either osteological assessment or aDNA analysis (S. Mays pers.comm).…”

“…Consideration has recently been made concerning the placement of well-furnished Iron Age burials with mirrors in the landscape, some being established towards the top of an escarpment, overlooking river systems as single, comparatively isolated deposits placed in a prominent locale (Joy 2011, 473). The burial with a mirror from Latchmere Green, in Hampshire, for example looked down on a number of rivers, including a tributary of the Thames (Fulford and Creighton 1998), whilst examples from Chilham Castle, Kent (Parfitt 1998), Birdlip, Gloucestershire (Staelens 1982) and Dorton, Buckinghamshire (Farley 1983), had extensive views of the Great Stour, Severn valley and Vale of Aylesbury respectively. Joy has suggested that Iron Age burials with mirrors tend to be clustered, identifying four chronologically and geographically distinct concentrations in the UK: East Yorkshire; Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; western; south-east and southern England (Joy 2011, 470-471).…”