Archaeologists from Thames Valley Archaeological Services (TVAS) unearthed the grave of a warrior in 2008, who died at around the time of the Roman conquest in AD43.

Excavations, led by Andy Taylor of TVAS, have been taking place in advance of a new housing development on behalf of Berkeley Homes (Southern) Limited and Persimmon Homes (South Coast) Limited.  The archaeological work is took place as a requirement of the planning process with the archaeological officer (Mark Taylor) of West Sussex County Council advising the District Council as to what is required.

These excavations revealed Bronze age boundary ditches and occupation, a small hoard of 4 Middle Bronze Age bronze axes (palstaves), an Iron Age roundhouse and a Roman building, set amongst fields.

 
But the chief interest lies in the finding of a rich, isolated burial, which is not part of a larger cemetery and is not otherwise defined. The deceased, a mature male more than 30 years old was laid out in a grave and was accompanied by grave goods. These comprised three large pottery jars placed at the end of the grave, presumably containing offerings to the gods or food for the journey into the afterlife, an iron knife and several items made of bronze. One appears to be a helmet and the other a  shield boss. Also present are two bronze latticework sheets highly decorated, perhaps used to cover a shield.

During the excavation of the helmet and decorative latticework

The burial and its grave goods seem to have been placed in a large coffin or casket bound by iron hoops with an iron framed structure placed on top. The bronze objects are not well preserved and have been lifted in blocks of soil by a specialist conservator for careful excavation and conservation in the laboratory prior to their study in detail. The provisional date of the burial from the associated pottery indicates that it took place either at the end of the Late Iron Age or just into the Roman period, perhaps around 50BC.

The burial does not appear to be so rich as some from the 1st century BC to 1st century AD in south-east England, but shares similarities with famous graves of Late Iron Age date from Welwyn and St Albans (Herts); Colchester (Essex); and Aylesford (Kent), and less close similarities with others from the continent. All of these are likely to have been graves of princes or chiefs (or, possibly, priests) but all are dated a little earlier than this site appears to be.

Conservation

The x-ray of the shield boss showed it was created in the sugar-loaf style. There were two rivets visible on the left side of the boss. Unfortunately it was incomplete as the top of the boss was missing. We were unable to take a top-down x-ray of the shield boss at the hospital, but an x-ray, taken by the Conservation Service, shows the object’s poor condition quite clearly.

X-ray of the shield boss after excavation
 

The soil blocks were excavated in spits, or layers, of an agreed depth and the soil block is divided into equal squares for the recording and locating of any features.

In our case, a depth of 2 centimetres was decided upon for each spit, and the depth would decrease once the finds were reached. For every new spit layer, the object would be photographed and details of the surface would be plotted on a scale grid.

 During the excavation of the latticework and x-ray of the latticework after excavation

The large soil block was separated into quarters, or quads. The above slide is of quad 2. There are two decorative accessories in the above image, one to the left of the picture, which is incomplete, and the other is jutting out of the soil, underneath the upper latticework. Its position is recorded in the x-ray on the right

The most fragile area was the upper latticework which sat on-top of the helmet.

There were many missing fragments, and one side of the lattice had become attached, to the top of the helmet, as the two objects had corroded together, to form a bond.

The excavation has been completed and now the conservation service is concentrated with cleaning and stabilising the objects. This is a 400+ hour project and will take us into the middle of next year to complete.

 
Bronze Age axe (palstave) after conservation

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