Boughton Malherbe Bronze Age Hoard Project at Maidstone Museum

By Sophia Adams

The Boughton Malherbe Late Bronze Age hoard has been the subject of a project spread over several months from September 2015 to March 2016, supported by the Kent Archaeological Society Allen Grove Fund.

The work was carried out by Dr Sophia Adams with support from Maidstone Museum staff and other academic researchers including Dr Brendan O’Connor. Every item in the Boughton Malherbe Bronze Age hoard has been studied, photographed, recorded, catalogued on Adlib and re-packed. Sixteen selected items are currently on display in the Museum prehistory gallery.

As part of this project, in liaison with Christine King, a public talk was planned and delivered to the local community at Grafty Green Village Hall on Sat 5th March. This free talk was attended by 80 people, mostly adults and a couple of children. These included local residents, academics, and archaeologists from Kent and further afield. The local press also attended and reported on the talk in the Kent Messenger newspaper (ML Mar 11th 2016). Response from the talk was very positive. Alongside images of the objects from the hoard Sophia was able to show a selection of the actual artefacts and replica objects including swords produced by Neil Burridge and presented by Matt Knight, postgraduate student at the University of Exeter. A further talk was delivered at Maidstone Museum on 30th July as part of the Festival of Archaeology.

Results

The Boughton Malherbe hoard was acquired by Maidstone Museum through the treasure process with grants from The Art Fund, the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Headley Trust. The Treasure Report lists 352 items consisting of both fragments and complete objects (PAS ID: KENT-15A293). The Maidstone Museum project has been able to refine this figure because some of the tiny fragments were originally counted as a single item while those stuck together were grouped as one item. The current count is 358 pieces from no more than 340 objects, two of which were inserted into the sockets of other items. Perhaps the best way to describe the size of the hoard is by its total weight: 64.2kg or c.1.0stone 2lb. An impressive quantity of bronze and copper indeed. In the future when the hoard has been cleaned the overall weight will need to be recalculated to account for the loss of weight with the removal of sediment currently attached to a number of the objects. The objects include 50 sword fragments, 25 complete axes and fragments from 83 axes, spearheads, knives, further tools including gouges, pieces of ornamental items including plaques and bracelets, copper ingots (the heaviest weighing 7.446kg), parts of bronze moulds for casting bronze axes and the metal debris from casting.

The majority of the artefacts are of Late Bronze Age date but there are four fragments of potentially Middle Bronze Age palstaves, a form of un-socketed, wedge-shaped axe. Research is ongoing into the precise dating of individual items within the hoard but it appears to have been deposited in the ground sometime between c.850–750 BC. Further details about the specific objects in the hoard are to be published in the next edition of the Kent Archaeological Society journal: Archaeologia Cantiana.

The hoard is of vital importance to Bronze Age studies both in Britain and on a wider European scale. It has even been proposed as the name for a specific type of Carp’s Tongue hoard found in England and France: Boughton-Vénat Type (Brandherm, D. and Moskal-del Hoyo, M. 2014. Both Sides Now: The Carp’s Tongue Complex Revisited. The Antiquaries Journal 94, 1-47). The articles stemming from this current project will in no way be able to comprehensively cover all the items in the hoard; however, a sample of objects will be used to address wider questions relating to the hoard’s composition, manufacture, fragmentation and deposition.

A further benefit of this project has been to build on the interest the hoard has provoked in the academic community and to connect this project with other research on Bronze Age metalworking and hoards. The information recorded from the hoard is feeding into a current research project at the University of Bristol on the Social Context of later prehistoric non-ferrous metalworking conducted by Dr Sophia Adams, Dr Jo Brück, and Dr Leo Webley.

We were also fortunate to coincide with Dr Xose Lois Armada’s Marie Curie Fund research at University College London on the composition of Late Bronze Age metalwork. As a result Lois undertook X-ray Fluorescence analysis on 63 items within the hoard (18% of the hoard) selected for their suitability for analysis based on condition of the object and typological information. This XrF will provide quantitative information on the composition of the copper alloys for comparison within the hoard and against other hoards and individual objects. He also sampled eight ingots for Lead Isotope analysis (15% of the total number of ingots and ingot fragments in the hoard). Lead Isotope Analysis assists in ascertaining the possible source of the copper. These results will be compared with those from other Kent hoards held in Maidstone Museum’s collection and comparative hoards in northwestern Europe. The results are currently being processed and will be reported on and published in due course.

Future Work

The hoard is in need of conservation grade cleaning and some pieces need more intensive conservation treatment. It is not possible to fully recognise the specific types of objects present and the specific decoration on some pieces without cleaning. Such work is also important to the long-term preservation of the hoard.

Conclusion

Maidstone Museum and Sophia Adams are grateful to the KAS and Allen Grove Fund for the financial support they have given to this work without which none of it would have been possible. The talks have provided a good opportunity to show the community the research value of metal detected finds and the importance of careful recording and detailed study. We hope the local interest inspired by this find and the research will continue and be encouraged through future activities related to the impressive prehistoric collections held at Maidstone Museum.

Images

ABOVE: Sophia Adams undertaking X-ray fluorescence

ABOVE: Socketed axe

ABOVE: Sword grip