Description

Summary: 1 flat whetstone of smooth hard stone and irregular pear shape found with a primary male and female (shaman/metalworker?) inhumation in bowl barrow Upton Lovell G2a, excavated by William Cunnington

Research results

A slate burnisher or touchstone excavated by William Cunnington in 1801 from the bowl barrow Upton Lovell G2a, the 'shaman' burial. The stone was deposited with a primary double inhumation of a crouched male and female, who had been deposited with a large number of objects, including a jet belt ring, a large number of perforated bone points and boar tusks, a bronze awl and polished flint and stone axes. Many of the stone tools with which they were buried appear to form part of a metal workers toolkit, and this piece of slate appears to have been used as a touch stone in goldworking, although it has previously been interpreted as a burnisher.

This grave group has been discussed by Boutoille (2019), who notes that it is exceptional in both the quantity of metal working tools and also their character, as although other hammerstones made from polished stone axeheads are known, this is the only grave in which they are found as grave goods. Boutoille discusses these objects as part of a preliminary survey of Bronze Age metal working tools in Britain and Ireland, noting that the range of metal working tools found in Britain appears to be more limited than than on the continent, although that it would still have supported a range of methods. She also notes that metal working tools from graves in the Early Bronze Age only tend to consist of those for finer work, with heavier hammers known from other contexts.

This object was examined by Colin Shell (2000) of the university of Cambridge, who used Scanning Elctron Microscopy and XRF analysis to confirm reported traces of gold first noted in the 19th century. The gold particles underlie calcite build-up deposited on the slate after its deposition, and also note that the proportion of copper and silver match that seen in pieces of Early Bronze Age Wessex goldwork.

This object, along with the other grave goods found with the primary double-inhumation of Upton Lovell G2a, has been analysed by Tsoraki et al. (2022) as part of the Beyond the Three Age System project. The analysis identified use wear consistent with the stone's use as a tool for smoothing or burnishing, with gold traces from at least two different metal stocks, and with alloys consistent with Bronze Age metal work.