A glimpse into Iron Age custom and belief

By Nigel MacPherson-Grant

This article reviews three seemingly innocuous items – a raw un-worked lump of red iron oxide, the rather drab looking lower body of a fineware pot and part of a small perforated iron oxide disc. The first is from Dumpton Gap, Broadstairs, recovered from the base of a large pit by the present author in 1971 and before subsequent excavations by Professor Tim Champion. The second two are from pits recorded during recent 2003 and 2018 excavations in the Trinity Square area of Margate (reviewed here courtesy of the Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company). All three are of the Early-Mid Iron Age date – between c.600-350 BC.

The cultural background to these elements lies in earlier periods – the Late Bronze and Earliest Iron Age. During the former and into the latter, sheet bronze cauldrons, tall high-shouldered storage jars or situla and metal cups were arriving in modest quantities from the Continent. These new shiny metal objects were prestigious and highly prized. Their existence began to affect contemporary pottery styles with the production of metalwork simulates – tall high-shouldered storage jars, often similarly-shaped though not so tall cooking jars and small variously-shaped fineware cups and bowls. Near the beginning of the Earliest Iron Age, from around 900 BC, it became fashionable to produce fineware vessels with a bright red slip intentionally aping the glowing appearance of bronze vessels. Most contemporary settlements had at least a few red-finished pots – so that even if they could not afford, or were not socially connected enough, to own or gift-receive a bronze vessel(s), they could at least bring out their quality wares when receiving guests or on special-occasion days.

Figure 1 illustrates a fineware bowl sherd from the earlier first millennium BC settlement at Minnis Bay, Birchington. Natural iron oxide similar to Figure 2 had to be collected to achieve the red finish. Since nodules of this material were unlikely to be easily found, they were probably prized and exchanged via trading networks. Once acquired, some of the nodules would be ground down to powder and then applied either dry (rubbed on) or, more probably, as a wet slip painted onto a bowl’s surface, mostly with no additional decoration. This potting convention lasted throughout the Earliest Iron Age for the next 300 years and continued into the Early-Mid Iron Age for a while after c.600 BC.

However, this period represents a new phase of continental influences with new pot shapes and decorative styles. The use of red-finishing continues but now in conjunction with white (ground chalk) or black (ground charcoal) paint applied as a component of polychrome-painted rectilinear schemes. The red colour is used to enhance and frame various design formats – the most typical are spaced square unpainted panels, bordered in white and then in- filled with white or, less frequently, black, painted designs. The technique is a classic diagnostic of the period – and several Thanet examples are illustrated (Figures 3 & 4). The design details would be painted using either a stick end chew-softened into splay, bound horsehair, or bound reed or dried grass heads. The latter is still used in modern Himachal Pradesh in India to paint beautiful white-on-red or black-on-red designs skillfully – the same types of design on the same types of pot as were made at Harappa in the Indus Valley over 4000 years ago (Perryman 2000, 21).

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As far as I know, the fineware pot base (Figure 5) is currently unique. The angle of its body wall suggests that it came from an angle-shouldered bowl or drinking beaker, a common form during the Early-Mid Iron Age. It had been discarded, either cracked during firing or broken during use. It has had its sides chipped down roughly level and to a shape ideal for holding in one hand while painting. Inside are definite traces of red and white paint, mostly mixed and merged into a pale pink colour. There is little doubt that it was used during the decoration of polychrome finewares, although the pink colour is a little unusual.

The function of the small perforated iron oxide disc (Figure 6) is less readily determined. Since it was excavated, like the paint pot, from a sizeable settlement site producing fragments from a number of polychrome-decorated and red- painted vessels, the first thought is that it was threaded onto string or a leather thong and worn around the neck of the potter or hung from his belt during pot-painting sessions.

Alternatively, since Bronze Age metal-smithing and the procurement of ores was, initially, a mysterious process imbued with a sense of magic and power, some of this mystique may well have rubbed off, to some degree, not just on the production of painted finewares but more specifically on the iron oxide itself and its bright red colour. It is not entirely unlikely that this disc was worn as a protective amulet by a woman. Like the colour of the Great Mother’s blood, it could be a life-giving charm, a help- meet during childbirth, and for the rigours of life in general – a thought that met with enthusiasm from a lady at a recent workshop.

With the possibility of a sense of mystique being attached to the acquisition of iron ore and its softer relation, iron-oxide nodules, an interesting adjunct to the above may be represented in some later Iron Age spindle-whorls recorded from Thanet. Four have been recorded to date, with three recovered from the late upper fills of a much, much earlier Later Neolithic ceremonial enclosure ditch at Lord-of-the- Manor, which must still have been partially visible in the landscape and respected as an ‘ancestor’ monument. All were carved from dark brown or pale pink-brown iron- oxide nodules. Compared with most whorls made with tempered potting clay or chalk, these are relatively rare. Two of these whorls are decorated – one in particular with a simple cross design scored on one of its flat sides. The decoration of mid or later Iron Age spindle-whorls does not occur that frequently; most – however well-made – are rather mundane and plain. Crosses incised on objects or pots, whether purely decorative or symbolically, have a long history in Europe and the Middle East. The association here with weaving is interesting and reminiscent, albeit rather stretched topographically, of one aspect of West Semitic belief systems current during their Bronze and Iron Ages. This involved a goddess called Asherah - related to Ashtoreth or Ishtar – who appears to be a patroness of spinning, weaving and cloth production (Rich 2017, 152-4). She, like Ishtar, is often portrayed with a crescent moon on her head, which relates to the concept of time and cyclicity. This can, in turn, be linked to a late nineteenth- century AD, but ultimately probably much older, North Russian custom of embroidering aprons with calendars (Barber 2013, Fig.2.2).

These include a cross-in-circle symbol that may indicate cross- quarter days or those when some annually celebrated the four Celtic festivals. It is not too far fetched to assume, or believe it is possible, that similar beliefs and customs were active in southern Britain during the Iron Age.

Bibliography

Barber 2013 – Barber, E.W., The Dancing Goddesses, W.W.Norton and Co.(New York) 2013

Perryman 2000 – Perryman, J., Traditional Pottery of India, A & C Black (London) 2000

Rich 2017 – Rich, S.A., Cedar Forests, Cedar Ships, Archaeopress (Oxford) 2017

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