Description

Summary: 1 ornament (?) of thin gold leaf, engraved with chevron and parallel lines in bands with cross-hatched lines forming margins, originally covering a plate of wood, found with a secondary (?) cremation in bowl barrow Upton Lovell G2e, excavated by William Cunnington

Research results

A Bronze age gold rectangular plaque cover, excavated from below the 'Golden Barrow' (Upton Lovell G2e) in association with a probable secondary cremation by William Cunnington. The rectangular plaque cover probably originally had a slightly domed face and is made of extremely fine gold sheet with down turned edges which would have originally gripped an organic core object. Looking in detail at the finely engraved geometric decoration we can start to reconstruct the order in which they were done: the border, for instance, appears to have been added after both the lattice and internal bands on the short axis, with it cutting over both where they overran.

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.

This object was on loan to the University of Leicester (February 2023) for wear and compositional analyses. Non-destructive techniques using microscopes, X-Ray Fluorescence and a Scanning Electron Microscope. The project will improve our understanding about how the objects were made, used and deposited. This research, funded by the British Academy, was led by Dr Rachel Crellin, and supported by Dr Christina Tsoraki, Dr Oliver Harris and Dr Christopher Standish. 'From Prestige to Practice: Shedding New Light on Early Bronze Age Gold through Microwear and Scanning Electron Microscope Analysis'. Results are expected in 2024.