A History of Ancient Britain (72 page)

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Authors: Neil Oliver

Tags: #Great Britain, #Europe, #History, #Ireland

BOOK: A History of Ancient Britain

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19. Seemingly peaceful now, Lindow Man was killed by axe blows to the head. He was likely already dead when he was then throttled with a cord. In a final act of
violence, his throat was cut before he was placed face-down into a shallow pond or bog.

20. As at home in our hands and time as in the Iron Age world in which they were made: the achingly familiar Fiskerton tools.

21. Made between 350 and 50
BC
, the Battersea Shield is far too ornate and delicate for battle. Instead it was likely carried by a victorious warlord as a symbol
of power – before being cast into the Thames as an offering to the gods.

22. Life and death in Iron Age Britain – skulls recovered during archaeological excavations at Danebury hill fort bear fatal wounds inflicted by swords and
spears. All were recovered from within a mass grave of battle dead.

23. In the Iron Age – as in every age before or since – at least some technological expertise was dedicated to the development of tools intended only
for the taking of life. Spearheads recovered from Danebury hill fort matched wounds on the skulls of the dead.

24. The Kirkburn Sword. Recovered from a warrior’s grave in east Yorkshire, it is regarded as perhaps the finest Iron Age sword in Europe.

25. Around a century before the birth of Jesus Christ, the Llyn Cerrig Bach slave chain is a reminder of a time when these islands were a focus for the trade of
human beings.

26. The Thames Spearhead was fashioned sometime between 200 and 50
BC
. Before the arrival of the Romans, master craftsmen were producing items that may be
regarded as the greatest contributions ever made by these islands to the world of art.

27. As mysterious now as when its final generation of builders turned their backs on it for the last time – Silbury Hill, near the village of Avebury in
Wiltshire. Standing 130 feet tall and with a footprint of around five acres, it is one of the largest man-made prehistoric mounds in the world and comparable in scale to the pyramids built in
Egypt in the same period.

28. One of the grand gold torcs of the Snettisham Treasure. Found by a ploughman in a field near King’s Lynn, the complete hoard amounts to around 30
kilograms of gold and silver jewellery. In terms of its value – and its artistic accomplishment – the best of the treasure has been compared to the Crown Jewels.

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