IN THE 13th century, an anonymous text, the Mort Artu, related the famous story of how King Arthur’s magic sword Excalibur was hurled into a mysterious lake. In Thomas Malory’s version, Le Morte d’Arthur, written in the 15th century, the legendary British king first obtained his sword from the Lady of the Lake who lived in the watery depths. Is it all just a story, or does Arthurian legend carry echoes of the religious belief of the prehistoric Celts? Archaeologists now have convincing evidence that for thousands of years a ritual practice linked two key elements of ancient mythology – water and weapons of war. They have stumbled upon a vast site in East Anglia, in which swords and other valuable possessions were ceremoniously placed in the water some 3000 years ago.
The relationship between the tools of military power and the depths of lakes and rivers appear to have been a fundamental aspect of prehistoric religious belief – a philosophy developed within a warrior society and dedicated to the worship of powerful gods and goddesses, especially those identified with water. Of the 2500 Bronze Age swords discovered in the British Isles over the past 150 years, the vast majority were dredged out of the country’s major rivers.
Now, on the floodplain of eastern England’s River Nene – at a site in Cambridgeshire known as Flag Fen – archaeologists have found weapons and jewellery which they are subjecting to an array of tests. At a laboratory in the British Museum, researchers are studying hundreds of objects with the help of X-ray fluorescence equipment in an attempt to discover precisely what metals are involved. Twisted and misshapen metal artefacts are also being X-rayed to discover their original shape. Although thousands of other swords have been dredged from rivers, Flag Fen is the first major site where weapons deposited in rituals have been found in situ in Britain.
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So far, nine complete swords and eight fragments of swords, scabbards and daggers, as well as scores of items of bronze, iron and tin jewellery, have been unearthed from the site. They were left there 30 centuries earlier, probably as offerings to a river goddess associated with the Nene.
Like many names for rivers in Britain and the continent, the name Nene itself may not be Germanic or Celtic in origin, and could well be pre-Celtic or even pre-Indo-European, dating back thousands of years.
Overall, archaeologists have so far discovered about 300 metal objects at the site. Apart from the swords, the area’s prehistoric inhabitants were busy depositing into the water everything from finger rings and brooches to axes and spears. Virtually all this prehistoric treasure has come to light with the help of highly sensitive metal detectors, skilfully operated by members of the Soke Metal Detector Club. Archaeologists have also brought in ground-penetrating radar equipment in an attempt to detect structures and objects buried deep under ground.
The dig, run by the Fenland Archaeological Trust, is jointly funded by English Heritage and Hawker Siddeley Power Engineering, which is building a power station on a small part of the site. Part of Flag Fen itself will be open to the public from Easter.
Jewellery and weapons seem to have dominated these prehistoric rituals, and Indo-European mythology is rich in such symbolism. In a 10th-century Icelandic saga, The Valuspa, a river whose ‘name is terrible’ is said to ‘flow, filled with knives and swords, through ice-cold valleys’. In a 12th-century rendering of the Germanic legend of Valhalla, the Danish poet, Saxo Gramaticus, describes ‘a river of blue-black water swirling in headlong descent, weapons of many kinds spinning in its swift eddies’.
A more familiar work of poetry and one of the oldest in the English language – Beowulf – describes a magic sword suspended in an underwater cavern. In the story, the poisonous blood of the sword’s female water guardian melts the blade of the weapon ‘like ice in the spring’. Beowulf, who had seized it, emerges into the human world with only the sword’s hilt left in his hand.
The clear implication is that swords belonging to supernatural beings cannot be kept permanently by mere mortals. Even Arthur has to return Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake. As if to emphasise, and ensure, that the property of the gods should not be kept by humans, many of the swords deposited in Britain’s rivers – and on the Nene floodplain site – were ritually broken in two as part of the prehistoric deposition ceremonies.
The ritual destruction of weapons is paralleled all over ancient Europe. Even in classical Greece, the ceremonial destruction of military equipment was an important feature of pagan practice. At Olympia, archaeologists have found swords, spears, breastplates and 62 helmets that were ritually bent out of shape before being offered to Zeus. Similar deposits have been found at Delphi and on the Acropolis itself. Some 2000 kilometres to the north – in Denmark, at Hjortspring in Jutland – archaeologists have unearthed an entire boatload of deliberately smashed weapons that date from the 4th century BC.
Even in medieval and modern times, the practice persisted, often secretly. Today, in an echo of past tradition, the practice of throwing bent pins into wells survives in some remote country areas of Ireland.
On the ancient Nene floodplain, at Flag Fen, dogs also featured in sacrificial rites, and the remains of five dogs have so far been unearthed there. Archaeologists have also found the remains of four people, but it is not yet clear whether they were sacrificial victims or ordinary burials.
The ritual sacrifice of weapons, dogs and possibly humans took place in front of a vast wooden structure, more than 800 metres long, the exact function of which is puzzling archaeologists. The structure consisted of some two million separate timbers, most of which survive preserved in the peat. It may have been an enormous avenue of thousands of totem-pole style wooden obelisks, a territorial border, a massive bridge, or a mixture of all three. The avenue of timbers connected the edge of the Fens with what used to be the Island of Whittlesey, and which might once have been a sacred area.
Continuing excavation and research may reveal the structure’s true role. So far, the archaeologists have excavated less than 10 per cent of the site. To examine the vast quantities of woodwork being unearthed and to date it, researchers have set up a laboratory on the site. They record on computer the details of the tree rings of hundreds of wood samples from the site. The density of the rings varies, reflecting the climatic conditions at the time the tree was growing. So the pattern of rings acts as a sort of chronological fingerprint that enables archaeologists to date the timber with great precision. Radiocarbon dating tests are also being carried out.
The researchers identify the species of tree from which the timbers originally came by taking ultra-thin slices of wood, and studying them under a microscope. An analysis of seeds and pollen at the site also reveals much about the environmental conditions at the time of the construction.
The Flag Fen site was important not just because of its size, but because it remained in use as a ritual centre, at least intermittently, for well over a thousand years. At the mainland end of the site there are a series of pits dating from the 16th century BC, filled with charcoal, large fragments of pottery and a man’s thighbones. The votive offerings of weapons and jewellery in the waters of the floodplain came later, dating from 1200 BC to 200 BC. The massive wooden structure connecting the mainland with the island was built in around 900 BC and probably remained in use and was frequently refurbished for several hundred years.
But Flag Fen is probably not unique, once viewed within the context of the Nene Valley as a whole. The river rises close to Northampton, 56 kilometres away, and archaeologists have shown that there was a long tradition of ritual activity throughout the valley for thousands of years before the spectacular timber monument at Flag Fen was built. At least 10 ritual centres have so far been discovered in and around the valley, including one, at Etton, where the ritual smashing of precious objects – axes – was already taking place in 3000 BC.
Flag Fen, Britain’s most mysterious recently discovered archaeological site, still has many secrets to yield. But it has already produced vivid examples of prehistoric religious practice that began 5000 years ago and still continue today. We may not throw swords or jewellery into water, but when was the last time you threw a coin or three into a fountain?
