Month: May 2026

Finely-decorated Roman lead coffin goes on display

Ancient

A late Roman burial of a high-status woman in a unique decorated lead coffin discovered in Colchester in 2023 has gone on public display for the first time. She was buried with rich grave goods including a set of fine jet hairpins and glass unguentaria. The coffin, the remains of its occupant and the grave goods make their debut today at the Roman Circus Visitor Centre. The exhibition will run for a year.

The Colchester Archaeological Trust excavated the site of the former Essex County Hospital in advance of housing development construction. The lead coffin was unearthed during the last days of the dig, after the public had been allowed to visit the site for one day, so the new exhibition is the first chance people will have to see her and her accoutrements.

Scientific analysis of the remains determined she was young, in her 20s or 30s, when she died. The elegant, carefully placed grave goods indicate she was someone of wealth. Samples of residues found in the coffin were identified as frankincense and gypsum, indicating expensive imported materials were used in the treatment of her body for burial. Residue analysis also found traces of exotic resins in one of the glass vessels.

Preliminary evidence suggests she may have been Colchester born and bred, but fully Romanized culturally and thanks to her family’s wealth, with access to goods imported from all over the Empire.

Adam Wightman, Director of Archaeology at Colchester Archaeological Trust, said: “This is one of the most fascinating Roman burials we have worked on in Colchester in recent years. The decorated coffin is a beautiful object in its own right, but it is the combination of the coffin, the grave goods and the scientific evidence that makes this burial so compelling. Together they allow us to glimpse not just a person, but the care, ritual and belief that surrounded her burial in late Roman Colchester.”

Hoard of Bronze Age heavy bracelets found in Poland

Ancient

A hoard of heavy Bronza Age bracelets has been discovered in near the village of Śniatycze in southeastern Poland. It consists of 18 objects arm and leg rings weighing a total of 3.6 kg, that’s eight pounds of bronze. They date to the late period of the Lusatian culture, known as Hallstatt D, ca. 550–400 B.C., a time when Lusatian bronze casting reached its peak of metal crafting skill.

The hoard was found by a metal detectorist practicing with consent of the landowner and with an official permit from the Lublin Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments. He reported the find and archaeologists followed up to excavate. The 18 objects were buried together in a single small pit just 30 cm (12 inches) beneath the surface. They were in such good condition that a preliminary cleaning was sufficient to make them immediately presentable for public exhibition.

The most significant objects from the standpoint of craftsmanship, form and ornamentation include:

  • a pair of practically identical bracelets made from a massive rod decorated with deep, single transverse cuts on the outside while the inside remains smooth,
  • a massive tube with a ridged edges decorated with rhomboid incisions filled with very fine horizontal incised lines,
  • a bracelet decorated inside and out with a continuous spiral incised across its entire surface that has such long overlapping terminals that it looks extra massive,
  • a c-shaped bangle decorated with knobs that is completely hollow on the inside,
  • a thick bar with herringbone rafter cuts and x-shaped incisions filled with horizontal lines.

The extraordinary weight, quality, quantity and condition of the objects make this a sensational find.

The find is all the more sensational because Lusatian culture ornaments made of bronze were found very rarely in the Zamość region and were only single pieces or only small fragments (not counting the treasure of ornaments from Czernięcin, where in 2023 an explorer discovered 13 bronze objects, including several bracelets).

In this case, however, we have a very large assemblage of 18 items, consisting almost exclusively of massive, large-sized greaves representing various types. These artifacts are of enormous cognitive, scientific, and conservation importance to archaeologists, in the context of analyzing the settlement of the Lusatian culture in the Zamość region and the entire Lublin region. The discovery of the bronze ornament hoard discussed here finds parallels in Greater Poland, Pomerania, Kuyavia, Lower Silesia, and also Lesser Poland.

The bracelets have been assigned to the Zamość Museum in Zamość where they are undergoing thorough conservation and scientific analysis of their metal composition. If all goes well, they will be ready for public display later this month for the Night of Museums event.

Wax notebook, silk tp found in medieval latrine

Medieval

A unique medieval wood and wax notebook has been found intact with its leather case inside a latrine in Paderborn, Germany. It dates to the 13th or 14th century, and is in exceptional condition, preserved by the archaeological miracle that is ancient human waste.

Archaeologists overseen by the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association (LWL) discovered the notebook in an excavation before construction of a new city administration building. Obscured in a wet clump of earth (night soil?) that smelled exactly as bad as you imagine, the object only revealed its secret identity was after conservators at the LWL restoration workshop cleaned it.

It is made of wood and consists of ten pages coated with wax so they could be written on and then reused. Eight of the pages are on both sides of four leaves; the first and last pages are the insides of the cover and back. The book was so tightly bound that conservators only had to clean the outside. The inner pages were completely clean, the wood unwarped and the thin layers of wax still perfectly intact complete with the original text written with a stylus.

The text is written in two directions, depending on how the book was held, but it appears to be from a single hand. [Dr. Sveva Gai, the LWL city archaeologist in Paderborn]: “That suggests it was used spontaneously as a notebook.”

Regarding the writing implement, Bretzel explains: “The stylus is pointed at one end to scratch the letters into the wax. The other end of the stylus was flat or spatula-shaped. This allowed the wax to be smoothed and the writing erased, making the tablet reusable.” […]

The wax still covers all the inner surfaces of the tablets and is largely inscribed with cursive script. Gai: “The Latin language—also an indication of an upper-class owner—and the characteristics of the cursive script date this book to the period between the 13th and the end of the 14th century. The wax, however, doesn’t just show the most recently written pages. The rubbing of an older script is still clearly legible.”

The full text has not yet been transcribed, although it next on the agenda. The writing is difficult to decipher because spelling and handwriting were idiosyncratic. Researchers hope revealing the content of the notebook will shed light on who the author might have been and what he was using the book for. The center of Paderborn in the Middle Ages had upper middle class homes and it’s possible the notebook belonged to a merchant who was recording his transactions.

The leather binding is decorated with an embossed pattern of fleurs-de-lis that cover the surface. This may suggest it originated in France, but the flower also symbolized purity and the favor of God, so it may have nothing to do with the French monarchy.

The first priority is to stabilize the organic materials of the notebook. The wood and wax will be analyzed to determine their composition, the resin mixture, any pigments that may have been added, melting point, etc. The leather pouch and wood are currently in distilled water which is being changed regularly to keep the materials from becoming brittle.

Meanwhile, the excavation is ongoing. Other objects found in the five latrines discovered at the site include stave barrels, a knife, proto-stoneware pottery and curious silk fabric remnants that were torn into rectangular pieces. Archaeologists suggest these were scraps left from worn clothes that were torn to use as a very luxurious toilet paper.

Silk as toilet paper also suggests to Gai the author’s elevated status: “As soon as this latrine can be assigned to a specific plot of land, archival research could be used to try to identify the residents of that plot. Then, in the best-case scenario, it would be possible to link the wax tablet to the name of a specific person.”

First-grader on field trip finds 1,300-year-old sword

Medieval

A first grader out on a field trip with his class discovered a medieval sword in Gran, Norway. Six-year-old Henrik Refsnes Mørtvedt saw a rusty piece of metal sticking out of the ground and with the eternal wisdom of his six years, he picked it up to see what it was, thinking it was an old piece of scrap or broken tool. It was a sword.

The teachers contacted the county archaeologists to report the find. They examined the sword and determined it is a single-edged sword, a type of weapon typically produced in Scandinavia during the Merovingian Period (550-800 A.D.). Archaeologists believe it’s from late in the period, or early in Viking Age before they began producing the double-edged blade commonly seen in Viking-era  weapons.

The iron has certainly corroded over the centuries, but despite the rust, the sword is in overall excellent condition. Even though the hilt has a thick outer layer of corrosion materials and soil, the shape of the pommel and guard resembles the design of Jan Petersen’s type F sword from his 1919 De Norske Vikingesverd (“The Norwegian Viking Swords”), still the standard text on Viking sword typology. Type F swords date to the first half of the 9th century, 

It has now been transferred to the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo where it will be conserved, X-rayed and subjected to metallurgical analysis to find out more about its construction, age and use.

This interview with future archaeologist Henrik Mørtvedt is in Norwegian and I can’t understand a word of it, but it’s just too cute not to post, and there are great shots of the sword.

Remains of illicit whisky still found in Scottish Highland

Modern(ish)

A piece of an illicit copper still used to distill whisky two centuries ago has been discovered in the Highlands of Scotland. Volunteers and experts from the National Trust for Scotland discovered the copper alloy piece in an excavation of the remains of a stone structure in Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve (NNR). The tapered collar matches an old illustration that identifies it as “An Gearradan,” the part that connects the lyne arm and the head of a still.

The excavation also unearthed a well-constructed hearth with evidence of burning, a stone-capped drain that run under the floor and a roof support timber that was buried when the walls of the structure collapsed. These features confirm that the small stone building was a bothy, a structure made for the purpose of distilling whisky away from the prying eyes of the law. There are five other known bothies on the Ben Lawers NNR, but this is the only one of them where a piece of the copper still has been found.

Invented by medieval monks in Ireland or Scotland, whisky spread out the monasteries and by the 17th century, private distillation was a central feature of the life of tenant farmers in the Highlands. The first taxes on whisky were imposed by the Scottish Parliament in 1644, but it was in the 1780s when laws were passed requiring all distilleries to be licensed that home stills went underground, or rather, upland into bothies where they could be quickly moved around should excise men get a whiff of them.

Derek Alexander, the National Trust for Scotland’s Head of Archaeology, said: “This is a wonderful example of how archaeology can tell a gripping story of spirit smuggling that would otherwise have been lost to time.

“In the early 19th century, illicit whisky distilling in these hills became a real battle of wits between excise officers and distillers. To find the remains of stills in these upland areas, you need to think like an excise officer. Those who distilled spirit in this bothy will have picked the location carefully to make sure they were well hidden.

“This bothy is well concealed along one arm of the Lawers Burn, nestled in a burn gulley where there’s a slight bend in the burn to shield the site from both upstream and downstream. The people who distilled here knew what they were doing and it’s possible the still was never seized by the authorities.

“If the still had been found by the excise officers, the still would’ve been taken away and destroyed. So, the fact that we’ve found this connecting piece here suggests the still was dismantled in a hurry and its components whisked away by the smugglers as they dispersed. The connecting piece may have been forgotten in the rush and left behind.

“Distillers of illicit whisky would’ve travelled light and left little trace of their activity, and so a find like this is especially rare and exciting. It gives us a glimpse into an activity that was once rife in the hills of Ben Lawers and which was seen by many as an act of community resistance.”

To get an idea of what the intact still would have looked like, this a 3D model of a similar copper still from the same period found in Cortachy. It has a flat bottom to sit inside a brick-built oven, so it was likely housed used inside a permanent structure rather than in a bothy.