Bush Barrow

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Drawing of the Bush Barrow diamond

The Bush Barrow (Wilsford G5) is a burial mound of the Wessex culture in the Normanton Down group not far from Stonehenge .

Burial mound

The burial mound has a diameter of 40 m and is 3 m high. The excavators William Cunnington , John Parker and Stephen Parker found the remains of a large man lying stretched out (north-south oriented) on the old surface in September 1808. The burial dates from 1900 to 1700 BC. Has been dated. Many finds are now in the Wiltshire Museum . Joan J. Taylor has suggested that the gold objects from the graves of Bush Barrow, Upton Lovell, Manton, Clandon Barrow and Wilsford G8 were made by the same goldsmith.

Find history

Richard Colt Hoare (* 1758), who had financed the excavations, published the find in the book Ancient history of south Wiltshire 1812, largely based on the excavation report of Cunnington. Cunnington kept the finds in the Moss House on his Heytesbury estate. There, the finds from his excavations were sorted according to where they were found. After Cunnington's death in 1810, the collection was sold to Hoare in 1818 for £ 200. After Hoare's death in 1838, this collection was neglected for 40 years.

In 1878 this collection was loaned to the Wiltshire Museum, founded in 1873. In 1883 the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society bought (with donations) this collection for £ 250. In 1922, the Bush-Barrow diamond was loaned to the British Museum and restored there. This restoration is controversial.

Gold sheets

Two ornate diamonds made of thin sheet gold. The larger sheet was a breast ornament . This conclusion is supported by the position of the find on the skeleton. It has a length of 185 mm, a width of 156 mm, a height of 5 mm and a wall thickness of 0.5 mm. It was originally attached to a wooden object and has four holes, probably for attachment. A similar sheet of gold found near Maiden Castle in Dorchester, Dorset in 1882 is the Clandon-Barrow diamond. However, it is more coarsely worked.

Belt hook

An ornate belt hook made of thin sheet gold (0.025–0.05 mm), probably never used. He was on the right arm.

Daggers

Three bronze daggers, one with a wooden handle that is decorated with tiny gold nails. These daggers were named after the Bush Barrow daggers, which precede those of the Camerton-Snowshill type. They are triangular, either flat or with a central rib . Six rivets connect the dagger to the handle. They have parallels in Brittany (Kernonen, Département Finistère ) and in the Aunjetitz culture (Oder-Elbe group). They belong to the types Armorico-British A and B according to Sabine Gerloff. The third dagger could only be recovered in fragments and has not been preserved.

Other finds

  • A club with bronze fittings, bone decorations and many small rings (lost today).
  • A Ballyvalley (Needham Type V) copper edge ridge ax, mainly found in Ireland. It was near the head.
  • A scepter of bone (bone).

literature

  • FK Annable, DD Ap Simpson: Guide catalog of the neolithic and bronze age collections in Devizes Museum. Devizes, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society 1964.
  • Paul Ashbee: The bronze age round barrow in Britain. London, Phoenix House 1960.
  • Peter Harbison : The axes of the early Bronze Age in Ireland. In: Prehistoric Bronze Finds IX / I. Munich 1969.
  • Colin A. Shell, Paul Robinson: The recent reconstruction of the Bush Barrow lozenge plate. Antiquity 62, 1988, pp. 48-60.
  • LA Kinnes, Ian H. Longworthl, M. McIntyres, P. Needham, WA Oddy: Bush Barrow gold. Antiquity 62, 1988, pp. 24-39.
  • AS Thom: The bush barrow gold lozenge: is it a solar and lunar calendar for Stonehenge? In: KW Beinhauer: Studies on megalithics: State of research and ethnoarchaeological perspectives. 1999, ISBN 3-930036-36-3 , pp. 280-307.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joan J. Taylor: Bronze Age goldwork of the British Isles. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1980.
  2. ↑ Ian A. Kinnes, Ian H. Longworth, Ian M. McIntyre, Stuart P. Needham, William A. Oddy: Bush Barrow gold. In: Antiquity. Volume 62, No. 234, 1988, ISSN  0003-598X , pp. 24-39, doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X00073476 .
  3. ^ Colin A. Shell, Paul Robinson: The recent reconstruction of the Bush Barrow lozenge plate. Antiquity 62, 1988, p. 48.
  4. ↑ AM ApSimon: Dagger graves in the Wessex Bronze Age. University of London, Institute of Archeology Tenth Annual Report 34, 1954, pp. 37-61.
  5. ↑ John Coles, Joan Taylor: The Wessex culture: a minimal view. Antiquity 45, 1971, p. 7.
  6. ^ Sabine Gerloff: The early bronze age daggers in Great Britain. In: Prehistoric Bronze Finds VI. CH Beck, Munich 1975.
  7. ↑ John Coles, Joan Taylor: The Wessex culture: a minimal view. Antiquity 45, 1971, p. 10.

Coordinates: 51 ° 10 ′ 14 "  N , 1 ° 49 ′ 44"  W.