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Hallaton Treasure: A conquest-period ritual site

The Hallaton Treasure, found in the surroundings of the village of Hallaton has proven to be the largest coin hoard ever found in England with over 5000 coins. The site was first discovered by Ken Wallace on the 19th November 2000, while fieldwalking an area where the work of the Hallaton Fieldwork Group, had shown that Iron Age people and Romans had lived there, over 2000 years ago. While excavating and researching the site, a broken roman helmet, jewellery and animal bones were also discovered. Most of the coins were shown to be made by the Corieltavi, the Iron Age inhabitants of most of the East Midlands with many coins also identified as roman. Because of the number of coins found, it is believed that the site was a shrine, where people made offerings.

Discovery & Excavation:

The area was found south-west of Hallaton on a south-east facing slope which lies 20 km southeast of Leicester. The East Midlands was long thought that due to the heavy soils of the clay lands, it was unsuited for prehistoric settlement and remained unutilised until the middle ages. However, during the winter of 2000, the Hallaton Fieldwork Group (HFWG) undertook fieldwalking in the low fields in Slawston and Hallaton, where they were able to find fragments of Iron Age and Roman pottery. The site had a series of geophysical surveys performed including magnetometry, where dark lines indicated they were created by enclosed ditches. Excavations were performed discovering details that had gone undetected by the geophysical survey. The site was initially found by Ken Wallace, who by metal detecting was able to find 200 silver coins. This was taken to Peter Liddle, the keeper of archaeology at Leicester museum and the coordinator of Leicestershire archaeology project. The coins found were assumed to be lined Iron Age silver units, dating between 50 BC to 50 AD associated with the Corieltauvi. Overall there were 1800 coins recovered by metal detecting also done on the site. The large quantity of coins has lead people such as Johnathan Williams to suggest it was a religious site with offerings. After the initial findings, the site was closed to prevent nighthawks. The main archaeological excavations were done in five fields southwest of Hallaton in 2001, with further excavations in 2003, that had received funding from the BBC, the British Museum and ULAS. Further excavations followed in 2005, with later small-scale excavations done by the University of Leicester and the HFWG in 2008 and 2009. The artefacts were cleaned, located and photographed, with all the findings of the site that was not found on the spoil heaps, getting recorded in 3D. The recognisable objects are a series of Iron Age coin hoards, with some containing Roman denarii, large deposits of pig bones, a Roman cavalry helmet and a silver bowl. The site had found 334 Roman coins, 4952 Iron Age coins, 6901 pieces of bone, parts of glass and pottery, 88 metal artefacts, 82 bones of pigs with potentially 300 pigs altogether, the bones of 3 dogs, and the bone of a broken human arm.

Artefacts:

Coins:

The largest batch of iron age coins ever found in controlled archaeological conditions in Britain has been unearthed at Hallaton. More than 5,000 coins were found during the excavation, most of them local coins made by Corieltauvi in the decades before the Roman invasion. These coins offer new insights into the study of British sites in pristine sedimentary environments. Although the exact age of the coins is difficult to determine, the earliest coins were probably buried at Hallaton, and all monetary evidence suggests that the site was most active during Claudian's time.

According to Ian Leins of the British Museum, the Hallaton coins have three periods, from 43 to 50 AD, which is the main stage of ritual deposition. The latest discovery is a Roman laudias coin dating back to 41/2 AD. Gold coins deposited outside the temple between 50 and 1 BC, along with 1st century BC brooches, are the earliest ritual deposits found at the site. Between 30 and 43 BC, before the conquest, coins were placed in ditches. This unusually large collection allowed him to design a new system for dating ancient coins. The earliest coins had images but no inscriptions and were often worn, indicating that they had been in circulation for some time. Later coins bore the name of what was believed to be the chief of the koletavi tribe. Each hoard from Hallaton contained samples of unworn coins with different names, so Ian concluded that the coins had been stored in a very short period of time (15-20 years)

Helmet:

Found within a hole along the Eastern edge, the Hallaton Helmet was found as fragments with the earmuffs being the first to be found. It was badly deteriorated, so a decision was made to lift them in a soil block to keep the whole assemblage intact. These fragments were later dated back to the 1st century AD and made of iron with silver foil covering it. It was most likely to be a Roman Cavalry helmet and was buried with over 1000 coins. The helmet could have been given to the Corieltauvi as a diplomatic gift.

The helmet may have been bought to Hallaton by a local man serving in the Roman army as Soldiers could potentially have bought back their helmets when they returned home from and possibly buried their helmets as an offering to the gods, this doesn’t explain the extra cheek pieces and silver foil. Another possibility is that it was bought to Leicestershire by the Romans themselves and gifted to a local chieftain to enable the Roman army ease of passage through an area. It is also possible that a variety of helmet pieces were carried by the army as spares to repair other helmets when necessary which would create an explanation for the extra pieces found (Score, 2011)

Other items discovered inside the soil block included bent hinge pins, one of the cheek pieces were originally attached to the helmet and potentially forcibly removed. A 2000-year-old hand-made bowl made of pure silver was also found and is one of the earliest known examples from Britain providing new evidence of traditions of Iron Age silversmiths. Observation and study conducted by modern silversmiths suggest that the techniques used to create the bowl are like those used today.

A decorated silver circular mount was the first object to be found in the ditch surrounded by silver coins. The pattern is more Roman than Celtic, resembling a Roman horse harness mounts and possibly attached to armour. Damage caused potentially ruined the visual apparent with the disc possible having another valuable, perhaps a personal attachment that the owner had. Blue and white glass fragments were found in the soil at the bottom of the ditch as well as fragments of thin gold foil.

Animal Bones:

Pig Bones:

In an area directly in front of the enclosure where the coin hoards were found was a large deposit of pig bones; it was these bones that instigated the investigation of the site. The initial group of remains was a 12m2 area of fragmented surface scatter but, after the removal of a section of this, a series of pits containing more articulated remains were found. Although small amounts of other animals and even human remains were found among the deposits, 97% of the bones were a pig, in contrast to other Iron Age and Roman settlements in which cattle and sheep normally dominate, making Hallaton an extremely unusual site. Pigs seem to have been especially important to the Corieltavi, they were perhaps their tribal emblem, with pigs appearing on many objects found within their territory. Based upon the number of pigs found in the excavated area it is estimated that the remains of up to 300 pigs are present on the site. The layer of surface scatter remains is believed to been the product of a number of feasts, possibly as part an annual gathering, while the pigs buried in the pits were younger than the normal age of slaughter (7-14 months compared to the normal 2-3 years) suggesting that they were killed for reasons other than consumption, perhaps for ritual purposes. The ritual theory is furthered by the conspicuous absence of right forelimbs from the otherwise complete remains, a common occurrence at other ritual sites in Britain and Europe.

Dog Bones:

The site also contained the remains of three dogs but unlike the pig remains these were separate individual burials. Two of the dogs were situated in front of the entranceway and one in the boundary ditch. The two in the entranceway were buried in roughly the same slot with the second burial effectively replacing the first. It has been suggested that these two dogs were intended to be guardians of the enclosure and that the second dog replaced the first as a form of renewal of this guardianship, either after changes to the entranceway/enclosure or possibly after the first dog’s ‘shift’ ‘expired’. The second dog appears to have been carefully placed with its head twisted around to face the coin hoards within the enclosure. The third dog was found close to the objects in the boundary ditch, again potentially guarding the objects found there. Dogs and humans appear to have had a special relationship for thousands of years and dog remains are frequently associated with ritual sites, especially entranceways. The Hallaton dogs were older animals and it may be that they were given the task of ‘guarding’ the deposits as a way of honouring them.

Period Table:

Modern day:

Hallaton – small village not from Market Harborough
Unusual event occurs – every Easter Monday
Strange ritual enacted
Villagers from Medbourne and Hallaton host one of the oldest surviving customs of rural England
Hallaton bottle kicking and hare pie scramble
Hare pie and penny loaves – distributed outside church in the morning
Bottle kicking – in the afternoon, from a spot known as hare pie bank
Origins of ritual are unknown
But reported as an ancient custom in a letter written in 1796 by John Tailby
Recent documentary evidence – existence of saint Morell (previously unknown)
Suggests that his chapel stood on hare pie bank – possibly linked with the custom
The cult of saint Morell is - A local cult is indicated by a will of a Hallaton priest dated 1532 bequeathing his curate to go on pilgrimage to four shrines
Legend - two women of Hallaton saved by a hare distraction a raging bull
In gratitude – donated money to the church to provide a hare pie, twelve penny loaves and 2 barrels of beer for the poor of the village – every Easter Monday .
Harbour Museum - See the Hallaton hoard in the treasure gallery at Harborough museum
Made possible by series of funding and partnerships
You can visit the portable antiquities scheme website to find out more
Ritual continuation
Reconstruction
Importance

Bibliography

Score, V. (2011) Hoards, Hounds and Helmets; A conquest-period ritual site at Hallaton, Leicestershire. Leicester Archaeological Monograph 21