Description

Summary: 1 thin slate whetstone, found with a primary inhumation (leather worker?) in a flat grave under a sarcen at Durrington Walls, excavated by William Cunnington.

Research results

A Bronze age slate 'sponge finger stone', found with an inhumation buried under a sarcen at Durrington Walls by William Cunnington in the 19th century. A number of similar stones have been found with beaker period graves, analysis of their wear patterns suggests they were not whetstones, and were probably actually used in leather working. This stone is probably from a source in Devon and Cornwall, and was found alongside a shale belt ring and a jet button.

Discovered in 1809 by a shepherd, the location of the Durrington sarsen grave was never recorded precisely in the writings of Colt Hoare or Cunnington and was thought lost. Re-examining this grave group and its discovery, Higham and Carey (2019) suggest that the sarsen under which the burial was deposited corresponds to that recorded on the 1887 ordnance survey map, in the north-West corner of Durrington Walls’ henge ditch. In the absence of any human remains, they date the burial to the period after c.2200 (the fission horizon), post-dating the main phase of activity at Durrington. They note that the grave group is exceptional, and potentially includes a number of heirlooms, making it especially odd that the group does not contain a beaker, something that they suggest was a deliberate choice.

This object was examined as part of the research published in Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods; a six-year research project carried out by Professor John Hunter and Dr Anne Woodward and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Aided by a large number of other specialists the pair undertood an exhuastive study examining over 1000 objects held in 13 museums across the country in order to provide an extensive overview of burial practices in the period and identify regional practices.