Trac 2015 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Ancient / Rome
Publisher: Oxbow Books, Limited
Published: 2016-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

The deposits containing regalia are not numerous but they offer a fair variety of objects. No one is similar to another: we cannot identify sets of objects, as it is usually possible for vessel deposits. Nonetheless, we can identify elements that get repeated. There is, in most cases, a mix of objects that were worn and used during the performance of rituals, and votives that were dedicated in temples or shrines (Stony Stratford and Willingham). This aspect might offer a hint to the interpretation of these deposits.

Some of the deposits were found at well-known temple sites, as in the cases of Wanborough and Hockwold. In these cases, we can go a step further and, by implying the religious nature of the deposit, suggest a function of foundation deposit, as in the case of Wanborough (Bird 2007). The majority of these items were found in the rural landscape. There is no evidence of this type of deposit from urban sites. In these cases, the deposits, although found not very far from known religious structures, were not found at the religious sites known so far. We may assume that these deposits were involved in a ritual not taking place at a major structure that we can recognize today or hidden for safe keeping with the intention of future recovery.

The New Deposit from West Stow, Suffolk

A deposit containing priestly regalia was found in 2010 by a metal-detectorist at West Stow, north-west of the town of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk (Fig. 1). It briefly appeared in Britannia, in the annual discussion of the most important finds recorded by the PAS (Worrell et al. 2011). It also has a concise entry in the PAS database (SF-D4D044).

It includes a total of 61 objects organised in two separate groups: some were deposited in a grey ware vessel while the others have been placed beneath or around it. Buried within the vessel were 15 copper-alloy and one iron object. At the base of the vessel were staff terminals shaped as birds, a triangular staff terminal, then a folding strap or belt. On the top was the crown, whose discs were piled on each other. The last objects were three copper-alloy metal plaques shaped as ‘feathers’, folded to fit into the top of the vessel. The finder removed these objects and unfolded the metal plaques. The second group comprises a copper-alloy tankard (in several fragments including the handle and two nails) and a copper-alloy crest, both buried under the vessel. Others objects include a bone fragment, three nails (an iron one and two in copper-alloy), a fragment of an iron blade, and more than 20 fragments of sheet copper-alloy.

Some of the objects in the West Stow deposit were in a vessel. The only other case of these types of objects found in an urn is the deposit from Stony Stratford. In the other cases, they are usually deposited in the ground without any container, or in a container made of perishable material which does not survive. The objects in

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