History beneath our feet
Colin Smale reveals some of the many historical artefacts found in the county.
CELTIC SILVER
In Lincolnshire around the 1st century AD, our Celtic tribe was called the Coritani (today updated and called the Corieltavi). Their territory stretched from North Lincolnshire to Leicester.
They produced beautiful gold and silver coins and one of them is featured here [PIC 1]: a 2,000-year-old Celtic silver unit dated around AD 15-40, found with a metal detector near Horncastle in October 2022.
On one side it shows a horse facing right with the ruler’s name ‘VEPOC’ above. The reverse shows a wreath. Vepoc means ‘word’, ‘voice’, ‘to speak’ – a fitting word for a ruler. These Celts were mainly an agricultural people and it is thought that when the Romans arrived in AD 43, the Coritani chose not to put up much of a fight, but to amalgamate with them. Of course, Queen Boudicca of the Iceni tribe in Norfolk/Suffolk chose a very different path!
GIRDLE HANGER
Here again [PIC 3] we are looking at something enigmatic, what on earth could it be? Can you guess?
This is a rare decorated 6th-century AD early Anglo-Saxon bronze ‘girdle hanger’ found on farmland in the Lincolnshire Wolds, near Tealby.
These are usually around 70-130mm long and would have hung from a woman’s leather belt (or girdle). They held keys and cosmetic items, such as tweezers, plus other smaller domestic items which could be easily suspended from these hooks via suspension rings to enable easy access to them in the same way that Vikings used Chatelaines.
They would have been about twice this length and one of two or even three attached to a large ring at the top that the belt went through, but this one has been snapped in half by farm machinery.
POTTERS’ STAMPS
Made of lead, potters’ stamps have been used ever since pottery was invented to individualise and decorate pots! Those pictured [PIC 2] were found on farmland near Ulceby Cross. They are pretty small – one is 43mm x 20mm – and without a metal detector they are almost certainly not going to be found, so a very rare find.
The Portable Antiquities Scheme (https://finds.org.uk/) has an example of pottery stamped with a very similar pattern, Record ID: NLM-17CC16.
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