English: Burton, Wrexham: Middle Bronze Age hoard of gold adornments and bronze tools with a pot (04.2)

Date: 1300-1150 BC

Description:
1. Flange-twisted gold bar torc: complete and slender, with round-sectioned hooked terminals. Tightly coiled seven and a half times, probably to fit into the pot. Slightly gouged, probably through recent plough disturbance.
2. Twisted gold wire bracelet: small and complete, comprising six twisted wires. Angular flat ended rectangular terminals, enclosing and securing wire ends. At intervals, there are joins between wires (possible soldered). Tightly coiled in flat coil form, probably to fit into pot. (Fig.XX)
3. Composite gold necklace pendant: round bead attached to a biconical shaped body. The body is made of circular sectioned wire, spiralled around in many coils and probably soldered together to form a hollow pendant. Wire from pendant drawn up and welded to bead. Wearing facets on the bead and the pendant top surface suggest it was once the centrepiece of a strung bead necklace. (Fig.XX)
4. Penannular gold ring: C-sectioned sheet, with rounded convex exterior surface and concave interior. Simple terminals.
5. Corrugated gold penannular ring: sheet, with triple ribs defined by two grooves. Simple terminals, pressed together and overlapping.
6. Composite gold penannular ring: formed of three round-sectioned wires, fused together. Simple clipped or cut terminals.
7. Round gold bead: small, hollow, thin sheet bead.
8. Biconical gold bead: thin, hollow, sheet bead with oval shaped apertures, slightly dented.
9. Biconical gold bead: thin, hollow, sheet bead with oval shape apertures, dented and with tear diagonally down mid-body wall.
10. Biconical gold bead: thin, hollow, sheet bead with oval shaped apertures, slightly dented.
11. Transitional bronze palstave: complete, narrow-bladed looped palstave with sides diverging slightly to an unexpanded blade edge. Median ridge on both faces, descending below the stop. Extensive surface pock-marking and erosion of original surfaces.
12. Transitional bronze palstave: complete, similar in form to (11). Badly eroded flanges and extensive surface pock-marking and erosion of original surfaces.
13. Trunnion tool (chisel) of bronze: straight-sided chisel, with pointed butt end, diverging to an unexpanded crescentic blade edge. Lateral trunnions or lugs, one highly eroded. Pitted and eroded.
14. Half base sherd from a hand-made pottery vessel of later prehistoric technology. Lack of body form, rim and decoration precludes precise dating on stylistic grounds. Old upper wall breaks, fresh break across centre of base.

Discussion: Soon after the reporting of this hoard, the find-spot was visited by two of the authors (ML and AG) and Nick Herepath, Finds Liaison Officer based at Liverpool Museum (to whom the finders had originally taken the hoard for safe-keeping). With the assistance of the finders, the precise location of the hoard was accurately tied into the Ordnance Survey grid. A test pit (1.5 by 1.5m) was hand-excavated directly over the discovery focus, revealing a number of inter-cutting detector pits. The ploughsoil was found to be around 0.30m deep, directly overlying subsoil. No further artefacts and no archaeological features were located. Recent ploughing had probably disturbed and scattered the hoard, the bracelet being dragged up-field some metres before being dropped by the plough.

The Burton Hoard may be dated to the Middle Bronze Age (1300-1150 BC) by the range of chronologically diagnostic artefact forms present. This is an exceptional and extremely varied group of gold adornments and bronze tools representing one of the most important gold-bronze associations of the Penard phase of the Middle Bronze Age in Britain. At this time, a distinctive tradition involving the skilled twisting of gold torcs, worn as neck ornaments or armlets, emerged and flourished across Atlantic Europe. This was complemented by new found soldering and spiralling decorative techniques, witnessed here on the twisted wire bracelet and the composite necklace pendant. These are extremely rare forms, the bracelet only finding parallel with a ring and neck ornament in the Saint-Marc-le-Blanc Hoard (Ille-et-Vilaine, France). The pendant is only paralleled by a very recent 2005 discovery from West Sussex, currently going through the treasure process (2005 T421).

These artefacts may have been the possessions of a single person of some standing, either within a wealthy farming community and/or perhaps tied into the network of copper, tin and gold exchanges between western Britain and Ireland of the time. The coiling of the torc and bracelet, before placing it into the pot indicates care taken in burial, which could have been a votive act or a burial by proxy, the body of the owner being disposed of separately. No settlements or burial monuments are known in the vicinity of this low-lying and periodically flooding burial place, near the River Alyn. It appears that riverside locations were commonly selected, in north east Wales and Cheshire, as appropriate places for the burial of gold artefacts and hoards. Rivers seem to have exerted deep symbolic significance to these prehistoric farming and metal-working communities. This region may now also be regarded as one of the 'hot-spots' for gold use and burial in Britain at this time, along with East Anglia, Kent and central southern England.

Dimensions: (1) Max. length as coiled: 114.9 mm; max. height as coiled: 39.0 mm approx; diameter bar: 4.1 mm, weight: 92.9g.
(2) Max. length as rolled: 37.8 mm; width of bracelet: 6.3-6.4 mm, thickness of wire: 0.8 mm; thickness of terminals: 1.4 mm; weight: 11.1g.
(3) Body length: 26.0 mm; max. body diameter: 8.6 mm; height of body and bead: 14.3 mm; diameter of bead: 5.1 mm; weight: 4.3g.
(4) Diameter: 12.2-12.7 mm; width: 3.8 mm; thickness: 0.3-0.5 mm; weight: 1.1g.
(5) Diameter: 14.2-15.3 mm; width: 7.9-8.1 mm; thickness: 0.3 mm; weight: 3.3g.
(6) Diameter: 13.7-13.9 mm; width: 6.0 mm; thickness: 1.9 mm; weight: 5.5g.
(7) Max. diameter: 7.1 mm; width: 5.9 mm; thickness: <0.1 mm; weight: 0.4g.
(8) Max. diameter: 11.4-11.5 mm; width: 8.2 mm; thickness: <0.1 mm; weight: 0.7g.
(9) Max. diameter: 10.2-10.7 mm; width: 8.5 mm; thickness: <0.1 mm; weight: 0.6g.
(10) Max. diameter: 10.2-10.5 mm; width: 7.9 mm; thickness: <0.1 mm; weight: 0.6g.
(11) Surviving length: 150.2 mm; surviving blade width: 44.7 mm; butt width: 23.8mm; surviving thickness at stop: 30.3 mm; weight: 304.9g.
(12) Surviving length: 152.9 mm; surviving blade width: 47.1 mm; butt width: 23.8 mm; surviving thickness at stop: 27.4 mm; weight: 289.5g.
(13) Surviving length: 134.3 mm; surviving blade width: 28.0 mm; surviving width at trunnions: 28.8 mm; max. thickness: 8.9 mm; weight: 101.6g.
(14) Base diameter: 100 mm; height: 32.3 mm; wall thickness: 8.5-9.5 mm; weight: 126.4g.

Metal content: Surface analysis conducted by the National Museum of Wales indicated the following approximate gold contents: (1) 80 per cent; (2) 89 per cent; (3) 87 per cent; (4) 97 per cent; (5) 96 per cent; (6) 95 per cent; (7) 95 per cent; (8) 97 per cent; (9) 99 per cent; (10) 98 per cent.

A GWILT, M LODWICK AND M DAVIS