Why the Norfolk carnyx matters |
For the archaeologists used to working on major infrastructure jobs, it was a small dig, over in four weeks. Yet Peter Crawley, in charge of excavating the ground ahead of a new local housing project near Thetford in Norfolk, had a hunch it might be important. His team at Pre-Construct Archaeology did a metal-detector survey, and he was proved right. But not in ways he had expected.
Curved sheets of corroded green bronze emerged from the soil, packed together in a space no larger than a side table. They lifted the heap in a block of sandy earth. CT scanning at Addenbrooke’s Hospital revealed an extraordinary sight: a compact mass of metalwork, and the unmistakeable shapes of a boar’s head and the central bosses of shields. Underneath was what raised the find into the magical. There was least one fighting horn, known to archaeologists as a carnyx. Featured in Roman-era records, the objects themselves are exceedingly rare. This one is the most complete ever found.
What happens next? Who owns the hoard? When will it be displayed? What was a carnyx, and why do we know so much about them but, until recently, have so few to prove they even existed? What does any of this have to do with Boudica?
Archaeologists await the outcome of an inquest. This........