A 1,500-year-old grave in which a horse and rider were buried together has been found by archaeologists working at an airbase in Suffolk.
Their find is judged to be rare in itself but is only one part of the significant discovery of an extensive Saxon cemetery dating from the 5th to 7th Centuries. The pagan burial ground was found at the RAF Lakenheath airbase, which is now leased by the Ministry of Defence to the United States Air Force. The MoD invited archaeologists on to the site before work started on a new dormitory block.
Archaeologists said that the coffin of the rider, thought to be a Saxon nobleman, if not of royal birth, was found alongside the horse.
Inside the coffin were a shield, sword and spear. The remains of a bucket, which had probably contained food, were found next to the horse.
Burial of a horse and man together has been observed several times on the Continent but is rare in Britain. Only five such burials have been found before in East Anglia, one at the royal burial ground of Sutton Hoo, though most were excavated in the last century when vital material was lost.
A significant aspect of the Lakenheath find is that the horse was buried wearing its decorative harness, allowing archaeologists to reconstruct precisely how it was worn. The harness has been judged to be extremely rare.
"It is almost unique," said Jo Caruth, project officer for the county council's archaeological service, who admitted that the excavation had been "very exciting". She said the archaeologists' original aim was to look for stray graves that might have been lying outside a Saxon cemetery of 34 graves that had been found on the base in 1959. Instead, they found a completely new, larger cemetery, containing possibly 200 graves.
Miss Caruth said: "The site is in very good condition. It has hardly been touched at all. It contains a good cross-section of the settlement, men, women and children. We are getting some human bones, which often doesn't happen because they are destroyed by sand."
Another man was found buried with his sword, indicating that he was of high rank, because swords were so hard to make. There was also a woman buried with a square-headed brooch.
Miss Caruth said that an archaeological find of such significance would usually be plagued with security problems as illicit treasure-hunters invaded the site, often at night. But the Lakenheath site, only half a mile from the runway used by F-15 fighters, is protected by the full might of the MoD police and the USAF security forces.
"The site is incredibly secure," Miss Caruth said. "Its history as an air base also means it hasn't been ploughed since the war."
The MoD is funding the dig and has granted extra time and money to allow the excavations to continue. One puzzle for the archaeologists will be to find out where the Saxons buried in the cemetery lived.
It's official: Lakenheath is fab, and a huge chunk of Ousekjarr managed to get along on the uni trip to the site (so if I miss anything or am wildly inaccurate about things, Carl and Sharon can put me right...)
So after getting through the mysterious roadblock at gate 1 and getting clearance from the penpusher in reception who could not spell 'archaeology' ... or anything else for that matter... we made it to the site. There are about 175 out of 200ish graves excavated so far. The horse has gone, but we looked at some photos of the harness, it is gorgeous, intricate designs and things. I had a word with the site manager and at the end of the site, she should be able to send me some photos and things, maybe we can scan some into the runestaff if people are interested...?
Anyway, the horse grave was situated off centre within a rectangular-ish ditch, but at the moment they can't explore the other side due to an active sewage trench, they will have a look when the pipe is redirected, but they can't see the corner of another grave at the moment... It was surrounded by child and infant burials most aligned E-W, but one was aligned N-S...
One person was buried with a quiver of 5 arrows. It was quite a big cut though the skele had gone, so it may have been an adolescent as bow & arrows seem to be more associated with youngsters' graves.
There are quite a lot of grave goods, men mostly with spears, some with shield boss, one had a very big spear head and copper alloy decorations on the shield. Females commonly had annular brooches, there is a possibility that one was buried with not only beads and brooches but also a dagger and a spear... lets hope so for the girly warrior camp :)
Bone preservation varied, much of the soil was sandy and bones were pretty badly preserved, but there were also chalky areas, where the bone preservation was better. The higher status burials tended to be in these areas, but this was possibly a higher area, where burials would be more prominent.
Many of the graves also had bits of cremations, but not whole cremations in the upper fill. There were only about a dozen cremations in their own rights.
Quite thin on the ground on vessels, one grave had a nice bit of classic Saxon stamped pottery, others had just sherds.
In terms of grave goods, this cemetery is fairly rich (I just didn't appreciate it to start with because I started my digging career at Buckland where most of the people were loaded...) but in consideration that this is Suffolk not Kent, it is pretty amazing in terms of goodies.
Probably can go into more detail once the post-excavation is done. The site ends in Mid-November (though the funding is meant to run out at the end of the month, you can't build on top of stiffs...) so hopefully I will get some photos and stuff in the Xmas-new year region... I would expect to see this site turning up in Current Archaeology in the next year or so...so look out all of you that subscribe.
Lots of post-ex to do, whether they get the funding or not is another matter. It would seem as if Angela Care-Evans is doing the finds processing, she's done the latest batch of Sutton Hoo stuff, although I may have got the wrong end of the stick about that bit...publication may take some time in coming I think...
Sadly, the Americans want a museum on the Air Base to house finds. We want it in the British Museum for obvious reasons... like the penpushers on the gate and the security thing...
Pip Patrick - Online Archaeologist
On Monday, 21 April 97, I saw a news report that said an Anglo-Saxon helmet had been discovered in Northamptonshire. My immediate reaction was shock (in a most pleasant way), followed by a great need to find out more. I've since followed up by contacting both the archaeologist who excavated it and the conservator who is working on it. Here's what I was able to find out:
At the moment most of the information about the helmet's construction comes from X-rays of it. There should be more information forthcoming as the conservation work takes place. The helmet seems to be constructed completely of iron (which is unusual as all three of the other surviving, reconstructable helmets use non-ferrous metals as well as iron). It is surmounted by an iron crest in the shape of a boar - only the second example found on a helmet anywhere in the world (although there are boar crests that have been found without helmets, including a bronze Anglo-Saxon one). It is similar in construction to the Anglian helmet from Coppergate, with a wide brow-band and a nape to nose band ending in a round tipped nasal. There are bands running from ear to ear, with metal infil panels. It has cheek-flaps very similar in shape to the Coppergate helmet, with an edging strip. There are holes around the back of the brow band which seem to have supported some sort of neck-guard. This part of the helmet has been damaged by a plough at some point so the exact nature of the neck guard is not clear at present, although it seems to be constructed of metal rods, perhaps some sort of 'link-mail' (not chain-mail as in the Coppergate helmet or a solid guard as in the Sutton Hoo helmet). The only other decorative feature apart from the boar seems to be narrow bands making a cross pattern running along the nose to nape and ear to ear bands.
The cost of excavation and conservation costs are being met by Pioneer Aggregates who own the site (well done Pioneer Agregates, let's hope more companies will follow your example in future). The helmet is already being referred to as 'The Pioneer Helmet'.
Other Items in the burial are a decorative bronze bowl with enammelled escutcheons, a pattern welded sword in its scabbard, a small iron buckle which seems to be associated with the scabbard and a small iron object which is probably a knife. There may have originally have been other items which have been lost through plough action. The grave also included long bone(s) from the leg, the top of the skull and both sets of teeth. The position and nature of the skull suggest that the head probablly rested on a pillow, and wear on the teeth shows that the body was probably not that young (perhaps 35-45). Current thoughts are that the man buried was probably a prince or important nobleman. The archaeologists are fairly certain that the burial dates to between 600 and 650AD.
Other work on the site shows that there was a Roman Vinyard capable of producing about 15,000 bottles of wine a year (!), an Iron Age settlement and some neolithic remains.
I will be posting a sketch of the helmet on the Angelcynn website at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2471/weststow.html over the weekend, so check that out if you want to see what it looks like.
Ben Levick
Angelcynn - Anglo-Saxon Living History 400-900AD
 | This Middle Ages and
Renaissance site owned by Chris Miller.
|  |
Get your own Free Home Page