British hoards and treasures

by Wormslayer Posted on January 6, 2012

 

The Hoards.

Boughton Malherbe Bronze Age Hoard – Buckingham Gold Hoard – Burnham Bronze Age Hoard – Cheapside hoard – Cuerdale Hoard – Collette Hoard – Corbridge Hoard – Fishpool hoard – Goldsborough Hoard – Hackney Double Eagle Hoard – Goldsborough Hoard – Henley Iron Age Hoard – High Weald hoard – Hoxne Hoard – Ipswich Hoard – Isleham Hoard – Langton Matravers Bronze Age hoard –  Migdale Hoard – Mildenhall Hoard – Milton Keynes hoard – Offham hoard – Pentney hoard – Snettisham Hoard – Staffordshire Saxon Hoard – Stirling hoard – Thornbury Hoard – Towednack Gold Hoard –  Tregwynt Hoard – Trewhiddle Hoard – Vale of York HoardWater Newton Treasure – Wickham Market Iron Age hoard –

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Coin hoards from the British Isles  450-1180 AD

There are so many coin hoards that its not feasible to list them all, but The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. have a Checklist of Coin Hoards from the British Isles, c.450-1180  To make sense of tables on the right of the list, make sure you take a look at the Note on arrangement page.

You may also be interested in ‘The Early Medieval Corpus Project’  Single Coin Finds in Britain 410-1180

The Treasures.

– Middleham Jewel–                                                  *             *             *

Definition and Classification of a hoard.

Hoards may be of precious metals, coinage, tools or less commonly, pottery or glass vessels. There are various classifications depending on the nature of the hoard.

A founder’s hoard contains broken or unfit metal objects, ingots, casting waste, and often complete objects, in a finished state. These were probably buried with the intention to recover at a later time.

A merchant’s hoard is a collection of various functional items which, it is conjectured, were buried by a travelling merchant for safety, with the intention of later retrieval.

A personal hoard is a collection of personal objects buried for safety in times of unrest.

A hoard of loot is a buried collection of spoils from raiding and is more in keeping with the popular idea of “buried treasure”.

Votive hoards are different from the above in that they are often taken to represent permanent abandonment, in the form of purposeful deposition of items, either all at once or over time for ritual purposes, without intent to recover them. Furthermore, votive hoards need not be “manufactured” goods but can include organic amulets and animal remains. Votive hoards are often distinguished from more functional deposits by the nature of the goods themselves (from animal bones to diminutive artifacts), the places buried (being often associated with watery places, burial mounds and boundaries), and the treatment of the deposit (careful or haphazard placement and whether ritually destroyed/broken). However, it should be noted that valuables dedicated to the use of a deity (and thus classifiable as “votive”) were not always permanently abandoned. Valuable objects given to a temple or church become the property of that institution and may be used to its benefit.

 

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