Celts and Romans in North Wiltshire

Recently members of the Chiseldon Local History Group had a wonderful opportunity – a behind the scenes tour of metal conservation at the British Museum, and a chance to see the work that has been done on the Chiseldon Cauldrons. We were met at the British Museum by Jamie Hood, one of the conservators working on the cauldrons and guided through a maze of hallways and backdoors to the conservation department. There Alex Baldwin and Jody Joy gave us a talk on the cauldrons – recapping their discovery for those in the group who weren’t there, and giving us more information on Iron Age cauldrons in the UK and Europe.

Members of the Chiseldon Local History Group at the British Museum

After the recap we split into groups to visit the different labs where metal conservation takes place. In one lab we had the opportunity to take a look at the cauldrons that are being worked with at the moment. For a few people on this trip this was an opportunity to see what has happened to the cauldrons, disguised as large piles of rust and mud, that they watched being removed from a farmer’s field in their home town. For others it was an opportunity to see the cauldrons up close for the first time. Either way the experience was wonderful. The cauldrons – and pieces of cauldrons – that we had the opportunity to see were still in the process of being conserved, but definitely look more like cauldrons than what was removed from the field in Chiseldon. The metal that the cauldrons were made of truly is wafer thin, and though the metal may still be crumpled, and in some places in fragments, the details that Jamie and Alex are slowly uncovering are amazing.

Looking at the Iron rim of one of the cauldrons. All of the containers on the table also have pieces of cauldrons in them.

After looking at the cauldrons we moved on to another metal conservation lab where more metal artefacts were being worked with. Here we got to see an Iron Age wine strainer, an Iron Age mirror, an Anglo-Saxon dagger, and an Iron Age bucket. Once again we had the opportunity to pepper the conservators with questions, and exclaim at the amount of patience that the very precise conservation work must require.

Looking at two cauldrons that were buried, and have corroded, together.

When our behind the scenes tour was over we ended the trip with a late lunch, and then a quick trip around the European Iron Age displays. We had the opportunity to take a closer look at some of the cauldrons that Jody Joy mentioned in his talk. Seeing a picture of the excavation of the cauldrons included as part of a display on eating and drinking in the Iron Age ended off the trip nicely.

Looking at a display on eating and drinking in the Iron Age – including a picture of the excavation of the Chiseldon Cauldrons.

Thank you very much to Alex Baldwin, Jamie Hood, Jody Joy and the other metal conservators at the British Museum for giving us the opportunity to come and see their work in progress.

If you are interested in the conservation of the Chiseldon Cauldrons a blog covering their conservation can be found on the British Museum website.

Many of the volunteers from Celts and Romans in North Wiltshire have asked for an opportunity to learn more about the artefacts that they have been working with.  So we organised an Artefact Identification Workshop for Thursday the 3^rd of March in order to give them an opportunity to do just that. The workshop was hosted by the Wiltshire Heritage Museum, who put us up in their lovely lecture hall, lined with a collection of old books. (Some of the volunteers were just as fascinated with these shelves of old books as they were with the artefacts). Katie Hinds and Richard Henry from the Portable Antiquities Scheme and Lorraine Mepham from Wessex Archaeology presented our volunteers with a wealth of information and a chance to look at some fantastic objects.

Katie Hinds speaking to volunteers about Iron Age and Roman metal objects

Katie Hinds spoke to the volunteers about a plethora of different Iron Age and Roman metal objects. The volunteers went away from her talk with information on bracelets, finger rings, metal weights and a number of other useful and decorative items. Richard Henry spoke about Roman coins and how to recognise different types. The number of little clues that a coin may have to tell you when and where it was made is absolutely astonishing. The headgear of the person on the coin, the legend, and the mint mark are only some of the little details that contain all this wonderful information.

Two volunteers from the Chiseldon Local History Group working hard to decipher the information on their coins

Working with books and guides - and with tea and coffee to sustain them - the volunteers had the opportunity to try their hands at identifying a selection of coins. The task seemed a bit daunting given all of the information they had just learned. The coins are small, faded and most of the time difficult to read. Despite the challenges, however, our volunteers got on fabulously. The trick to identifying a coin is, as Richard told the volunteers, to write down what you can see first, and then to try to identify the type of coin it is.

Lorraine Mepham speaking on Iron
Age and Roman PotteryAfter a lunch break Lorraine Mepham talked to the volunteers about Iron Age and Roman pottery. She went through all of the different types of information that a pot can give us, about how it was made, where it came from, and sometimes even what was stored in it. Afterwards the volunteers had the opportunity to go through a fabulous array of pottery set out on the back tables. The volunteers handled the objects, and got to feel the differences in the various types of pottery. Lorraine answered questions about the items, and even quickly identified small collections of pottery that volunteers had brought with them from their own explorations.

The workshop was a great success, with everyone going away having learned something new. Thank you to the Wiltshire Heritage Museum for the use of their space, Katie Hinds, Richard Henry and Lorraine Mepham for making it such an interesting session.

If you’re interested in learning more about Iron Age and Roman objects here are some online resources that can help:

• The Portable Antiquities Scheme
• The British Museum (Collections Database)
• Roman Republican Coinage
• Wild Winds – Greek, Roman and Byzantine Coins

Having a chat about some beautiful pieces of Iron Age and Roman pottery

Organising four years’ worth of wall plasterOn Tuesday 18^th of January work started on two finds processing activities related to the project Celts and Romans in North Wiltshire, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Volunteers have been visiting the Wessex Archaeology office in Salisbury for a couple of days every week to wash, mark, box and bag finds from this year’s Truckle Hill excavation and the field walk that took place at Chiseldon in November.

For the first year since it started the Truckle Hill excavation has produced more than just a few pieces of pottery and piles of CBM, stone and wall plaster. (All of these are of course very interesting in themselves, but not particularly interesting to wash.) Instead volunteers have had the opportunity to wash pottery as well. Almost all of the pottery looked like dark lumps before it was cleaned because most of it was found in the black soil from the Roman crop drier. (Take a look at Truckle Hill: Digging a Roman Bath House – Day 6 if you would like to read about the excavation of this area.) Two volunteers have spent two days washing all of the pottery, as well as the usual CBM, and plaster, but despite all their hard work, there is still a lot of washing and marking to be done.

Washing the finds from Truckle Hill

Another pair of volunteers has been working patiently to organise and record four years’ worth of wall plaster from Truckle Hill. As I said before, the wall plaster is really very interesting, with all of the different colours of paint, patterns and materials that have gone into making it. Recording and photographing all of that detail is very time consuming, but produces great results! It is particularly exciting when the pattern of the painting slowly gets pieced back together.

Wall plaster pieced back together to show the painted pattern

After two weeks’ work there is still a lot of plaster to be recorded but our very dedicated volunteers will continue after a short break this week, and I am sure they will continue to produce wonderful results.

If you would like to learn more about what happens to artefacts after they’ve been excavated by coming to help out please feel free to contact me. Helping hands are always welcome.

A shelf stacked full of trays of clean artefacts

As often happens when we ask questions, we haven’t received answers… just more questions! Instead of revealing the outline of an enclosure, which would have told us ‘Yes’ there is a settlement here, or revealing nothing, our geophysics results have left us wondering what was going on where the cauldrons were found.

Preliminary geophysics results on the site of the Chiseldon Cauldrons

In the field where the site was located a plethora of anomalies have shown up. These are the scatter of dark spots in the picture. The cauldrons excavation took place within the square outlined in blue. Given how close the anomalies are to where the cauldrons were found it is quite possible that a good number of these are pits.

On the south side of the field boundary there is much less activity. The dark spots in this field represent a different sort of anomaly. They are probably horse shoes and other iron farming objects that have ended up in the field. If you take a good look at the south west corner, however, you will see a faint circle. On the ground this circle would be 25 metres across. It could be a ploughed-out barrow or a timber circle.

I hope you enjoy taking a look at the results… but I have a word of advice. Don’t stare at them too long. After awhile the image starts looking like a ‘Magic Eye’ picture, and shapes start appearing all over the place.