A Late Bronze Age Hoard from Blackrock in Sussex and its Significance

C. M. Piggott

doi:10.1017/S0079497X0001923X

A Late Bronze Age Hoard from Blackrock in Sussex and its Significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2014

C. M. Piggott

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The hoard of bronzes from Blackrock near Brighton, was first published in 1916, and later received treatment by Curwen in his Archaeology of Sussex. The obviously foreign elements in the hoard have not been clearly recognised in the past, and in view of their significance it is desirable that a more detailed description of the finds should be put on record, and that some attempt should be made to fit them into the existing pattern of the Late Bronze Age of the British Isles.

The following objects (all of bronze) were found in the hoard:

I. Three ‘Sussex Loops.’
II. Two plain armlets.
III. Eight unlooped palstaves.
IV. Rapier blade with three rivet holes.
V. Dirk handle.
VI. Decorated spiral finger-ring.

Unfortunately the exact locality and conditions of finding cannot be determined with certainty, but there is good reason to believe that the discovery was made at Blackrock, about two miles to the east of Brighton. There is little doubt that all these objects were found together, and that they comprised the whole hoard.

Of these objects, the Sussex loops can be fairly closely dated in the British Bronze Age, and the bronze dirk handle and decorated spiral finger-ring are imports from Schleswig-Holstein or North Germany. The origin of the other objects is less certain, but it is immediately clear that a study of this hoard may be of value in cross-dating between our own Bronze Age and that of the Northern Countries.

First we will discuss the ‘Sussex Loops’ and their chronological position in the British Isles.

Type: Research Article
Information: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 15 , 1949 , pp. 107 - 121

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X0001923X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1949

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^{page 107 note 1} Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., XXVIII (1916), 153Google Scholar.

^{page 107 note 2} The hoard is at present on loan to the Brighton Museum. I should like to record my thanks to my husband for his drawings of the bronzes, and to Mr Cowen and Professor Hawkes for much help and criticism, most generously given during the preparation of this paper.

^{page 108 note 1} Archaeology of Sussex, 175.

^{page 109 note 1} At Stump Bottom.

^{page 109 note 2} Proc. Prehist. Soc., VII (1941), 128–31Google Scholar.

^{page 109 note 3} Proc. Prehist. Soc., XIV (1948), 233–4Google Scholar.

^{page 109 note 4} ibid., 1 (1935) especially 57–9.

^{page 109 note 5} Ant. Journ., XVI (1936), 461Google Scholar.

^{page 109 note 6} Curwen, op. cit., 177 and fig. 49.

^{page 109 note 7} S.A.C., LXXII, 49.

^{page 109 note 8} Curwen, op. cit., 177 and refs.

^{page 110 note 1} Arch. Journ., XXXVII (1880), 94Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 2} Archaeologia, LXXI (1921), 138Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 3} Proc. Somerset A.S., V (1854), 91Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 4} Arch. Journ., IX (1852), 106Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 5} ibid.

^{page 110 note 6} In the Stourhead Collection. Archaeologia, XLIII (1893), 469Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 7} Arch. Camb., December 1941, 160–1Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 8} Proc. Prehist. Soc., VIII (1942), 46–7Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 9} ibid., 36.

^{page 110 note 10} ibid., XIV (1948), 216.

^{page 112 note 1} ‘Bracelets meant to steady the wrists of the young Druidess or other sacred damsell, upon whose thumbs the divining rod was to be balanced by the point of the diamond, while from the hole underneath depended a plummet’. S.A.C., 11, 226Google Scholar.

^{page 112 note 2} Proc. Prehist. Soc., VIII (1942), 41Google Scholar.

^{page 112 note 3} Arch. Journ., XXXVIII (1881), 324Google Scholar.

^{page 112 note 4} Proc. Prehist. Soc., VIII (1942), 39Google Scholar.

^{page 112 note 5} Devizes Museum Catalogue, II, B.16.

^{page 112 note 6} I am grateful to Mr T. Lord of the Pig Yard Club Museum, Settle, for allowing me to publish this.

^{page 112 note 7} Kindly drawn for me by Miss Clare Fell, who points out that the method of constructing the side plate is one which must have been familiar to makers of Class III native spearheads. Whether these two pins were native attempts at copying an unfamiliar type of pin, or whether the decorative side plate of the more southerly examples was a development from the simpler ones it is not possible to say.

^{page 112 note 8} Prähistorische Zeitschrift, XXVI (1935), 208–18Google Scholar.

^{page 112 note 9} See Proc. Prehist. Soc., VIII (1942), 37–8Google Scholar.

^{page 114 note 1} Archaeologia, LIV (1900), 88–112Google Scholar.

^{page 114 note 2} Arch. Journ., XXII (1865), 74Google Scholar.

^{page 114 note 3} Proc. Prehist. Soc., XII (1946), 128Google Scholar.

^{page 114 note 4} Yet another thin wire bracelet may have been found in Surrey, though without significant dating associations. This, with two thicker ‘loops’ was purchased by the British Museum in 1873. See Proc. Soc. Ant., XXVIII (1916), 159Google Scholar. Concerning this find Mr Brailsford informs me that the B.M. Register describes them as a plain ring 2¾ inches diameter and two square-sectioned Sussex Loops. Originally said to have been found near Reigate, a later hand has added that they may be part of the Handcross (Sussex) find.

^{page 114 note 5} George, and Chauvet, , Cachette d'Objets en Bronze à Vénat (Angoulême), 1895, 89 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 114 note 6} Mém. Acad. Clermont-Ferrand (1873), and Déchelette, , Age du Bronze, 312Google Scholar.

^{page 114 note 7} L'Anthropologie, XVIII (1907), 518Google Scholar, fig. 3, no. 7.

^{page 114 note 8} Gross, , Protohelvêtes, XVI, 22Google Scholar (Mörigen), see also, Munro, Lake Dwellings of Europe, fig. 21, no. 29 (Le Bourget).

^{page 114 note 9} Cinq Années de Fouilles au Fort Harrouard (Rouen, 1927), Pl. VII, 1–7Google Scholar.

^{page 114 note 10} The Archaeology of Sussex, 172.

^{page 114 note 11} Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., XXVIII, 147 ff.Google Scholar and fig. 1.

^{page 114 note 12} ibid., 149 and fig. 2.

^{page 114 note 13} ibid., 151.

^{page 114 note 14} Ant. Journ. IV (1924) 220–6Google Scholar.

^{page 115 note 1} Montelius, , Swedish Antiquities ‘Stockholm 1922’, no. 1166 and p. 41Google Scholar.

^{page 115 note 2} Ant. Journ., II (1922), 28Google Scholar.

^{page 115 note 3} B.R.-G.K., II (1941)Google Scholar, fig. 36, and refs. to others in Holland, etc.

^{page 115 note 4} Jessup, , Archaeology of Kent, 102Google Scholar and Pl. V, 12. See also Sprockhoff, 41.

^{page 115 note 5} Archaeology of Sussex, Pl. XV, 7.

^{page 116 note 1} Kersten, , Zur Altesten Nordischen Bronzezeit (1938),Google Scholar Pl. XIV, 1.

^{page 116 note 2} Notable amongst these is an example from the much discussed group of Liesbüttel. For the latest dating equation between these bronzes and our British Bronze Age, see Proc. Prehist. Soc., XIV (1948), pp. 217 and 233–4Google Scholar.

^{page 116 note 3} Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., XXVIII, 164Google Scholar.

^{page 117 note 1} Reall., IX, Pl. 125, h and i.

^{page 117 note 2} See also Beltz, , Die Vorgeschichtlichen Altertümer des Grossherzogtums Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Schwerin, 1910)Google Scholar for other examples.

^{page 117 note 3} Proc. Prehist. Soc., XIV (1948), 203Google Scholar.

^{page 117 note 4} ibid. 216.

^{page 117 note 5} Excavations in Cranborne Chase, IV, Pl. 238, no. 6.

^{page 117 note 6} Wilts Arch. Mag. XLVII, 640–60Google Scholar.

^{page 117 note 7} Proc. Som. Arch. Soc., V (1854), 91Google Scholar.

^{page 118 note 1} Or 950 on Broholm's most recent estimate in Danmarks Bronzealder (vol. IV forthcoming).

^{page 118 note 2} Proc. Prehist. Soc., VIII (1942), 26–9Google Scholar.

^{page 119 note 1} ‘Niedersachsens Bedeutung für die Bronzezeit West Europas’, in B.R-G.K., XXXI (1941), 82Google Scholar.

^{page 119 note 2} Archaeologia, LXI, pt. 1, 143, fig. 162. Note that Evans, , Ancient Bronze Implements of Gt. Britain, 383Google Scholar, suggests that these armlets may have been associated with the well-known palstave with incised decoration.

^{page 119 note 3} Archaeologia LXXI, 139Google Scholar with figs.

^{page 119 note 4} Wilts. Arch. Mag., LIII (1949), 104–12Google Scholar.

^{page 119 note 5} See for instance the Villers-sur-Authie hoard, p. 110 above.

^{page 120 note 1} B.M. Bronze Age Guide, 52.

^{page 120 note 2} I am grateful to Professor Hawkes for kindly handing over his notes to me. He examined the Ramsgate armlets with Sprockhoff in 1932.

^{page 121 note 1} Proc. Prehist. Soc., VIII (1942), 26–47Google Scholar.

^{page 121 note 2} Danmarks Bronzealder, vol. IV, forthcoming.

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A Late Bronze Age Hoard from Blackrock in Sussex and its Significance

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