Ferrybridge Chariot Chieftain: Shrine?

[Yithian]

Ancient chariot excites experts

A chariot burial site uncovered in West Yorkshire could be the final resting place of one of Britain's ancient tribal leaders, archaeologists say.

The well-preserved remains, found by road contractors near Ferrybridge, are thought to be about 2,400 years old.

But evidence suggests that people were still visiting the grave during Roman times - 500 years after his burial.

Experts believe that native Britons may have used the site as a shrine to re-assert their national identity.

Archaeologist Angela Boyle said the site, uncovered during the £245m upgrade of the A1, was "one of the most significant Iron Age burials ever found".

Important figure

Burials were extremely rare during the Iron Age, with evidence suggesting that most bodies were simply discarded in rivers and other water courses.

The man was about 30 to 40-years-old, 5ft 9ins tall and in "remarkably good health" with a full set of teeth.

Tests on his bones suggest he originally came from an area some way away from West Yorkshire, possibly Scotland.

"This was not the man in the street, he was clearly important. Whether this was the leader of a tribe or in fact a number of tribes, we do not know," Mrs Boyle said.

"He was buried there with that chariot because he was clearly an individual that commanded a lot of respect."

In addition to the man, 10,000 fragments of bones from about 300 cattle were found buried in a ditch around his resting place.

Tests have shown that the cattle were put in the ground about 500 years after the man - and all came from different herds and different areas of the country.

The finding shows that the site "continued to be venerated for hundreds of years after the burial", Mrs Boyle said.

The team from Oxford Archaeology believe the cattle bones were the remains of feast for native Britons who gathered to commemorate the man.

The feast, which thousands of people would have attended, came at a time when the Romans were exerting their authority in the country.

"This could be seen as a reassertion of native identity or a plea to ancestors to help them out in difficult times," Mrs Boyle added.

"I would suggest that what we are actually seeing here is a re-emphasis of the importance of that area to the native population of the country as the Romans were moving into the area."

The chariot burial, only the 21st discovered in Britain, should now help archaeologists discover more about the tribes that lived in the north of England.

Mrs Boyle, who directed the dig, said the team have been helped by the remarkable preservation of the site.

"I have been doing archaeology for 21 years now and I was blown away, absolutely blown away," she said.

"I have never seen anything like it and I actually almost cried when they uncovered it."

"The whole thing, when I saw it in its entirety, was wonderful, really wonderful."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 333705.stm

Quite cool.

Theories? Speculation?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here are some more details about this burial from a year earlier (2004) at the time of the initial discovery.

Special Report: Riding Into the Afterlife

Archaeologists in northern England have uncovered the best-preserved chariot burial ever found in the U.K. The discovery was made during an excavation near the town of Ferrybridge in advance of a new highway that will link London to the northeast of England. ...

Not only did archaeologists discover the remains of its iron tires and bronze and iron fittings, but they were also able to trace the stains in the soil of long-vanished wooden elements. Within the chariot box, they found the skeleton of an adult male, who had been in his forties when he died. He was sent into the afterlife armed with a spear, perhaps indicating that he belonged to a warrior elite.

Chariot burials in Britain are rare. Most of them have been found in a cluster to the east of the city of York, about thirty miles from Ferrybridge. Archaeologists feel that the people who lived here between the fifth and early second centuries B.C. belonged to one group, known today as the Arras Culture. These people differed little from their Iron Age neighbors in other parts of Britain except for their exotic form of chariot burial.

The practice of burying people in chariots is more common in continental Europe. This has led some archaeologists to speculate that the leaders of the Arras Culture were settlers or invaders from parts of modern-day France and Germany who brought their burial rite with them. The style of the chariot's bronze fittings matches those found in continental Europe and indicate that the chariot, or at least its fittings, may have originated overseas. Consequently, Oxford Archaeology, the firm that oversaw the excavation, is undertaking isotope analysis on the man's teeth that will help to determine where he was born. "Whatever scientific analyses reveal will be fascinating," says Boyle. "Even if he turns out to be local, how did he come to own a chariot with foreign fittings?" ...

FULL STORY: https://archive.archaeology.org/0403/abstracts/special.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

This chariot burial is one of only two (out of 21 in the UK) in which the chariot was buried intact.

In England, chariot burials are characteristic of, and almost confined to, the Iron Age Arras culture associated with the Parisii tribe. Finds of such burials are rare, and the persons interred were presumably chieftains or other wealthy notables. The Wetwang Slack chariot burial of c. 300 BC is unusual in that a woman was interred with the chariot. In 2017 another chariot burial was unearthed in Pocklington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, dated to BC 320 to 174. This was the first chariot burial in the UK to have been found with horses also interred. In addition to pony skeletons, the remains of the presumed driver were found, along with iron fragments from the chariot's body. A bronze shield in the grave was exceptionally well preserved. "The discoveries are set to widen our understanding of the Arras (Middle Iron Age) culture and the dating of artefacts to secure contexts is exceptional," said Paula Ware, managing director at MAP Archaeological Practice Ltd.

Some 21 British sites are known, spanning approximately four centuries, virtually all in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The Ferrybridge and Newbridge (near Edinburgh) chariots are unusual in Britain as they are the only ones to be buried intact. The burial custom seems to have disappeared after the Roman occupation of Britain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_burial

 

[JaneD]

I feel impelled to point out that there already is a highway that links London to the north-east of England, it’s called the A1. But Wetwang is one of my favourite place names ever. Please can we have a new Wetwang culture?

 

[Naughty_Felid]

I feel impelled to point out that there already is a highway that links London to the north-east of England, it’s called the A1. But Wetwang is one of my favourite place names ever. Please can we have a new Wetwang culture?

"A moist penis"

God, I feel old.