Dr Sophia Adams

Curator at the British Museum

How were you involved? 

My initial reaction to the Melsonby hoard was a feeling of awe in both senses of the word because it was quite incredible. The expertise that I brought to the Melsonby hoard was the knowledge of artefacts, the periods and place so we can help to identify what’s been found, how old it is and the composition. I recorded every object and fragment as it came out of the ground and a treasure report was passed onto the coroner who decided whether the objects qualified as treasure under the legal requirements of the Treasure Act 1996 and The Treasure (Designation) Order 2002.

What was found? 

Our working theory is the objects were deliberately damaged in a bonfire or perhaps funeral pyre. It’s something you could debate for many years, but we think it was deliberate. By stopping vehicles from being used, stopping the harness from being worn by animals shows that you’ve got wealth and the power to be able to destroy that much material. We think it’s very possible the burial objects were related to a death or a funeral.

Although we didn’t find any human remains, there were some bits of animal bone preserved within the deposit so if there was human bone inhumed in there, it would have survived. This suggests that if a person was part of the process, either the human remains didn’t survive, or they weren’t buried in the same location as the objects. 

What makes the discovery unique?

The Melsonby hoard is significant in terms of understanding the Iron Age Britain. Although it can seem like a wealth of objects is important for giving us new information, it’s how the objects went together, what happened to them, how they’ve been buried and their environment.

The findings imply that this wasn’t just one person, it was a big event and possibly a large gathering of people. I think there’s various ways as to why this find is important to the public. The fact that we’ve got such a big wealth of material being buried in northern England draws attention on the importance of the local area. It’s fascinating that some of the objects are still recognisable now, like the bridle bits and show us how things have changed so little over 2000 years.