The Archaeology team from the History Centre have been involved with excavating two exciting new finds in the last few months.

In October last year a metal detectorist working on farm land in the south west of Wiltshire discovered a bronze spearhead. Realising the significance of what he had a found, and the possibility of more still buried under the surface, he contact Katie Hind, the Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, who is based at Salisbury Museum. Katie, together with staff from the Archaeology team and the finder went back to the site and carefully excavated the spot where the object has first been discovered. At first it was thought there may be a handful of bronze objects buried as a “hoard” or grouped deposit of  artefacts buried at some point in the past by someone who intended to come back to it (a prehistoric form of banking!). As the day went on we were amazed and delighted to find a deep deposit of bronze objects place one on top of the other, 114 of them in total!  (see photo 1).What was really surprising  and unusual was the great diversity of object types . The hoard consisted of tools (axe heads, chisels, sickles, gouges) and weapons (spearheads, daggers, knives, swords and scabbard fittings). They were all made from copper alloy and came out in good condition.

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My name is Sebastian Foxley. I am a conservator working as part of the Objects Conservation team at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre.  I have recently been working on a Roman vessel called a trulleus. A trulleus is a bronze sauce pan and trullei were used by Roman soldiers for cooking. Other examples have been found in Britain in Roman military camps but they are unusual in areas such as Wiltshire where there is little evidence of Roman military activity.  

The high level of workmanship and the fact that parts of the object are coated in a layer of silver suggest that this was not just a cooking pot for a common legionary.  Similar artefacts have been interpreted as belonging to officers but the item may not have belonged to a soldier at all.

 
The trulleus

The object was found as part of a hoard consisting of three trullei and two wine strainers found at Kingston Deverill in Wiltshire. The hoard and the conservation of one of the wine strainers are described in one of the case studies in the conservation page of our website www.wshc.eu/about-wshc/conservation.html.
When the items where first excavated the resources to have all five vessels cleaned and conserved were not available. Although one item was conserved the others had to wait still covered in soil from the field they were found in until they could be treated.  

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