Step in the Right Direction – Further Discoveries of the Lympne Lamp

Description: Isabelle Diggle, Finds Liaison Officer for Kent, discussing the county’s first significance case of Treasure. This is a Roman copper-alloy foot shaped oil lamp, the first of its kind in Britain.

Transcript: All right. Well, it's two minutes past, so I think we'll get started. So, once again, guys, it's lovely to to have you all here. Um, if you could please make sure that your cameras and your microphones are switched off so that we can uh make sure all of our energies are focused on the wonderful speakers today. So, good evening everyone. I hope you're all doing great. It is a pleasure as always to welcome you here with us tonight. If you missed it, last month saw our first year birthday. The amazing talk from Jazelle Kurle will be online on our YouTube channel imminently and you can watch us celebrating in style. But now we're older and far more grown up and uh we can look forward to our our next amazing speaker. We do have a whole year's worth of incredible lectures accessible on our YouTube channel. So if you've missed any, do go check them out. Recently, we've been working hard to bring you all the latest updates and information on the SI society and the general heritage events in the county. And indeed, for those who like to read, we've had a bumper month. So, I hope those of you who are members enjoyed the brand new edition of Archaeologia Caniana. And I hope the summer magazine has also provided plenty of useful insights and updates. The website is, as always, full of incredible heritage treats, and we've been out and about meeting schools and community groups. So, it's all systems going, but it's all about the monthly Zoom talk, of course. And today, we have something very special for you. Um, excuse me. So, uh, we do, as always, hope to avoid any technical issues, but please do bear with us if there's any problems. Jacob is on hand to guide us through the cosmos of potential calamity, so we should be all right. If you're not a member of the society, please do think about joining us. It works out only about £3 pound30 a month which I think is an absolute bargain. It's cheaper than a book of stamps. Uh for that you'll receive a copy of our yearly journal Archaeology Caniana full of the most current historical and archaeological research in the county. You'll also receive our bionial magazine, regular newsletters, exclusive access to our collections, conferences, and selected events. Opportunities to get involved in excavations and research projects. and she'll allow us to continue putting out content such as these wonderful free talks, outreach in schools, community groups, seminars, and all the rest, which uh we hope bring the benefit of Kent history and heritage to everyone. So, do check out the website for details on how you can become a member and get involved. Housekeeping, let's do that bit, the boring bits. Uh the talk will last for about an hour. After which time, I think about an hour. I think that's right. After which time, we will have time for questions. If you have any, please keep yourselves on mute with your cameras off throughout so that we can hear our speaker clearly. During the Q&A, you can either use the raise a hand feature and we will unmute you when it's your turn to ask question personally, or if you prefer, you can type your question in the chat box and we will read it out for you. I hope it goes without saying, but please do be courteous and polite to our speaker and to each other. We will be recording the session and it may be posted to our video channels in the future, but no personal data will be shared. And if you ask a question but would prefer it not to be published, just send us an email, let us know and we will make sure it's not included. So that bit out the way onto our speaker, Isabelle Diggle has always been destined for great things. Deputy headgirl at secondary school and a school prefect. She learned quickly important skills in public speaking and organization and probably a love of shiny badges and symbolic treasures. After achieving fantastic A-level results in studying historical archaeology at the University of York, she's held roles as classroom assistant project archaeologist at Hedland, assistant collections manager at the British Museum and now holds the incredible position of files liaison officer for Kent with the portable antiquity scheme. Isabelle gets to witness the incredible discoveries made across Kent and the rest of the UK firsthand and is instrumental in ensuring those discoveries are recorded for future researchers and everyone with an interest. It's a unique and amazing role, but it does also mean that Isabelle is probably the most in demand individual in the whole of Southeast England. I have personally witnessed room full of people, rooms full of people clamoring over one another to get close enough just to steal their contact details. She's the Aphrodite of the Kent treasure process. Um she's also a Brownie guide leader, the editor of Trial Blazers and Women in Archaeology Wikipedia Group, a self-proclaimed artifact nerd nerd and one of the loveliest people you will meet. So, it is our absolute pleasure to welcome her here tonight to discuss one of the most significant finds in recent Kent history. Isabelle, it's over to you. Thanks, Craig. Gosh, I'm blushing. That's amazing. Um, right, I will just share my PowerPoint with you. Um, now, thank you all very much for coming this evening. I really appreciate it, especially because it is quite lovely outside here in Tumbridge, Wales. Um, come on. There we go. Hopefully you can all see that and we'll get straight into it. So, um, yeah, thank you all for coming this evening. It's really, really exciting to talk to you all about this um, which is this amazing discovery has taken up quite a lot of my brain space um, over the last year. So, any excuse to talk about it, I will take. Um, and I'd also like to thank the KAS uh, for having me this evening and asking me to present to you guys. So this talk is going to be the start quite similar to one that I've given um to the Roman fines group and also to the SHA group themselves um which was lovely earlier this year. Um however from those and uh Andy Ward and I's initial research on this we ended up with quite a lot of questions. Um and today I'm going to put a bit of a crazy theory out there at the end. Um and you can decide for yourselves if you think that's completely barmy. Um, and I just really want to hear other people's thoughts and opinions because this is an object that gets your just mind really going. Um, so yeah, and then we'll kind of talk to you as well about sort of the next steps of how we're going to evidence these. So we'll start off looking at the lamp itself, which is the star object and the very nice pottery that's associated with it. We're also going to talk about the parallels for it and other kind of similar objects in this uh foot world that I seem to have stumbled in. Um, we'll also talk about the circumstances surrounding the lamps discovery, which is really exciting. And we're also going to look at the wider historical uh context for the surrounding area. I'm also going to give you uh the argument for the significance of this object and why um after its discovery, uh myself and the guys at the Kent Archeological Society chose to put it forward for potential treasure. Um and then as I said, I'm going to give you the crazy arguments for what it all might mean. So, jumping straight into it. This here is our lamp. Absolutely stunning thing. Um, and just to kind of put it in specific view, obviously we've got scales there, and each sort of little bar is a centimeter. This thing's really tiny. It fits kind of just in the palm of your hand. It's it's really small. Um, so all the detail that you see here in the pictures was captured by um my amazing uh assistant, John Whitmore. So, he's done a really good job of so you can see all the fine details because it's it's teeny. Um, the lamp, as you can see, is made entirely of copper alloy. Um, probably some kind of bronze. Um, and it's got a large hollow in the top to enable its function as an oil lamp. So, you can see there just on the left, there's a little little plug of soil left in the top there. Um, so that's kind of showing you where the hole would be to pour the oil in. Um, also from the top of it, we can see that there's a hook as well, which is quite interesting. There's a really similar one listed in Crummy's Colchester excavations. Um, and you can see that the chain attached to it is quite intricate. It's got sort of links and also S-shaped loops to tie those together. Um, and if you hang it, it does suspend um, perfectly. So, it keeps it level, which is quite impressive really. Um, these chains are attached to two integral attachment loops. Um, and the foot itself is extremely well molded. Um, and it's it's really quite realistic. Uh, it's been wearing a sandal, which hopefully you can see here. If you look just sort of down, especially the right hand side, you can see it a bit better. If you look down from the ankle, you can see the strap there and a few going down towards the sole of the sandal. And there's also a ridge running along the top of it as well. So, it's quite an intricate shoe it's wearing there as well. Um, it has been suggested that this could be a sandal of a female style. Um, but I'd like yeah some some experts to have a look at that and confirm for me, but that's the idea that's out there at the minute. Um, it was also found with its base, which is intact, um, but it wasn't attached. So, uh, you'll probably see on a later slide. Um, the lamp has a very thin copper alloy plate uh in the shape of a sole, which is quite interesting um because it's nowhere near as robust as the rest of the lamp. Um, and as it says on the screen here, uh, we're dating this to the first century AD, and it's the first of its kind confirmed to have a British origin, which is the most exciting part. So the lamp was also found in Lim which is in the Folkston and Hive district of our lovely county of Kent. So it's along the Kent coast and locally the area is famous for its safari park. Um but hopefully seeing this will be the most exciting exciting thing it's remembered for. The lamp almost certainly dates to the first century AD because we have some other examples that um corroborate this date quite well. Um and it's also what we call a plastic lamp um which is slightly misleading. It's not made of plastic. It just means that it was modeled in three dimensions. Um, this lamp is the first of its kind to have been unequivocally discovered in Britain. The lamp though was also found alongside 24 shreds of pottery, which we can't forget about because they really are quite important to have this context to go with it. Um, these all the shs appear to have been broken in antiquity. the brakes are quite worn on them and we don't believe that the vessel is complete. Um, so we've got 24 shirts and some of them are quite large, but I I don't think we could um recreate it from what we've got at the moment. Uh, one shirt that you can see on the screen is a base shirt. Um, and the other 23 are all body shirts. Uh Paul Hart really kindly took a look at these uh photographs of this for Andy Ward and I um and is thinking that this is a North Kent fine wear or a Kentish white cream wear. So it's definitely some kind of table wear for certain and probably from uh the sort of profile we can make from those basil shirts it seems to be a flag. Um, again, this would date it to kind of uh the 1st century AD, sort of 50 AD through to 150 AD. Um, so this sort of broadly uh relates to the date of the foot lamp, so we're hopefully looking at a contemporary deposit here. Um, however, we don't have the rim shards, so we don't want to say anything too much for certain, but yeah, it's um it's gorgeous as well. It's absolutely lovely creamy texture to it, and it's just yeah, really, really nice pottery. It's um it's a shame we can't put it all back together really. So plastic lamps uh these are well attested across the Roman Empire. Um and they can depict a range of subjects. So this one on the left here that you can see that's actually a main ad um with an aacant aacantis leaves and things above its head. And on the right we also have a bull um with this kind of lunar marking above it as well which is quite interesting. Um, most of these plastic lamps, they tend to date towards the 1st century AD and they sort of wayne in popularity towards the later Roman period and then they sort of spike up again towards the very end um towards into the fourth and fifth centuries. But what I should say is although they're well attested, um, lamps of all types are notice notably very scarce in Britain. Um, and copper alloy lamps are particularly rare in Britain. Um, to put it into perspective, the PAS, we have 1.8 million objects. Um, and that's growing every day. Uh, we only have four copper alloy Roman lamps and only one of them is a plastic lamp, which is this amazingly intricate one you see on the left here that was found, uh, I think it was about 10 years ago now. Um, and in Echart's Illuminating Roman Britain, which has been a bit of a Bible publication really while working on this object, um, there are only eight plastic lamps recorded. So, they're they're really unusual. Lamps of all kinds are pretty unusual in this period because they have to mark, um, quite a bit of wealth and status. You know, it's it's burning resources. Um, and then most of the examples we do have are made of ceramics. So the the copper allo ones are really quite rare. Now the ones that I've got on the screen are obviously not in the shape of a foot. Um and this because this is because there's only three foot lamps in Britain. Ours being one of them and the most recent. So the two on the screen are the only other foot lamps in Britain. And as you can see, these are made of ceramic. Um the one on the left being terra cotta. And I believe the one on the right is supposed to also be. It's just um it's it's had a bit of a rough time in storage, the whole thing. Um the one on the left was found in London in the Budacan Revolt layers um in Suk and the one on the right is from Chippenham Museum um and was from their collections there. The only other um copper alloy plastic foot lamp. So there is another foot lamp that sort of resembles our one in Britain is in Tuli House in Carlilele. However, the Tuli lamp was uh acquired from the collection of an antiquarian called Robert Ferguson. And he did collect objects from Carlilele, but he also collected really broadly from the continent. and um most of his collection the provenences are really unclear. So we can't confidently say that that foot lamp was found in Britain and up until the discovery of this one um it seemed very unlikely that it would have been as well and I should say is it does slightly differ from the ones on the screen the style of the shoe that it's wearing and everything is is quite different. So that means that the limb lamp um is the only example of a copper alloy Roman plastic foot lamp in Britain with a confirmed native fine spot. Those of you who know about treasure will uh have alarm bells probably ringing in their heads. So we've looked at some nice lamps, but you're probably thinking, why a foot? because in our in our modern sensibilities probably wouldn't be uh people's first choice to go to for rather expensive um elite object. So as I said before lamps themselves would have represented a significant level of wealth and status. It's the quite literal burning of food and resources. Um so you you've got to have some money to put into that. So why would you choose to have a humble foot uh as your vessel for this? Well, and I should say here that I've um Liz Shaw, who has recently published a BA on this subject, um her work has been invaluable in understanding Roman feet. Um and that it is actually a subject that has an amazing amount of scholarship and has been due some scholarship into it for quite a while. Um, so from Liz Shaw's work, um, it's very obvious that the anatomical foot in Roman culture is kind of a known motif that keeps appearing and it seems to have had a number of different meanings um, often simultaneously as well. So feet uh, like people's heads and also fallacuses uh, in the Roman period can act as a signature for an entire person um, not just their feet. it represents their whole self. Um they could also be a sta a symbol of status and as of power. If you think of those um Roman statues where the emperor is or depictions of Roman emperors where they're quite literally stamping on their competition um crushing the competition with their feet. It kind of has this idea of power and of connotation of the competition marking authority and status. Um there's also a really interesting connection uh which may be less obvious with feet and this is their connection to temples. Um it's quite well recorded about temple uh stones and steps having footprints impressed into them uh to kind of mark that liinal space. Um and there's also quite a large connection between feet and the cults of Isis and Capus. And the first one um the cult of Isis has quite a large link to the Roman military especially at this time around the lamp. Um feet do mark these liinal spaces between the physical and the spiritual world and because of that they're kind of seen to ward off the evil eye as well. Um you think you're kind of passing through different spaces and your feet are what kind of uh ground you to this earth this physical plane. And so it seems to have had quite a spiritual connotation there as well. Uh we also see footwear being used to mark Roman citizenship on tombstones which is very interesting and military status and also female virtue. So like I say we've got a lot of mixed meanings uh here but they're all quite well represented and quite well argued in the literature. Um, however, they're also noted as being novelty items. Um, for anybody who's been to the museum at Naples, you can see uh flying feet sort of hang up all over the place alongside other quite rude statuses. So, they are still seen as novelty items in some contexts. Interestingly, um, foot-shaped amulets are known from the continent during the Iron Age. Um because here we're looking at the first century AD. So it's you know relatively early within the Roman conquest of Britain. Um and the foot being on the right in Roman context appears to be um very significant as most lamps are the right side and so are most figurines. But it seems to be important to lamps because um when we look at things like foot brooches or sandal bes don't have the same uh patterns of being a left or right foot. They seem to be a lot more even whereas lamps they're really favoring the right foot as in this example. And the lamp can also sort of lamps and how they've been designed can also tell us a lot about a person's gender, their economic status, their class, their rank, their profession, um, and maybe how they would have been seen, but also how they want to be perceived um, after the fact as well, as with many types of objects that we find in archaeological context. Um the footwear on the limb lamp is what we call a I'm going to butcher this now a so which is basically a flip-flop. It's a flip-flop like sandal which is primarily worn within the home and um these are an intrinsically Roman type of footwear. Um these shoes would have been hobnailed and some examples do have false hobnails on the soles which is very very interesting. Um you'll see the certain lamps have sort of uh raised bumps basically to imitate Roman hobnails on the sole and they're often in patterns. They can be swers um kind of uh spirals. So they they're clearly using that as quite a lot of symbolism. Interestingly our lamp does not have that. As I said, the sole on the limb lamp is a very thin flat copper alloy plate um with no indication of having had any hob nailing, which um is quite surprising when you think of how complex the actual molding of it is. Um it seems sort of a misuse of uh resources to have not decorated it quite so highly. Um the limb lamp is also very interesting. It is substantially smaller um than both the native ceramic and the continental copper alloy foot lamps. Um most other examples like this one you can see on screen also have looped handles on the reverse of them. Um and just to remind you ours does not have any handle or any indication of a handle. It has um a chain and a a loop at the top. So ours has got a hook, sorry, and a chain. So that's very very different. Um and these ones, like the one on screen where they have uh this handle, that implies that they are meant to be carried and to be held and then probably laid flat on a surface, whereas ours is appearing to be hung in some way. Um, so what really interests me about that is that does this suggest a different function or a different origin for the limb lamp from the continental examples because um a number of lamps now have been able to be dated to um certain workshops and also geographically located certain workshops. Some of them being um on the continent and some being in Egypt um which has been difficult for us because of the different attachment method. It's been quite difficult to parallel that in the available literature. So it's very interesting. It gets your mind working thinking why is this one got many similarities but quite a few integral differences as well. So I'd now like to discuss um a little more of the excavation context uh of the lamp. And as I'm sure many of you know and the pottery I should say uh that these were found in excavations by the studying history and archaeology in limb group um who have been investigating the site of what is currently interpreted as a Roman forkllet. Um these excavations are in the vicinity of Stockfall Castle which is the Roman Saxon shore fort of poris lemanis and both the shell site and stuck castle are predominantly dated to the 3rd century AD and primarily seem to have a defensive uh function. So the lamp was found during the excavation of a 1.5 m stretch of Roman wall um that was initially found during 2023 and is currently interpreted to be 3rd century in date due to the available coinage that's been found around it. And metal detectorrist and sh member and all around just lovely lovely guy Neil Green um was metal detecting around the edge of the escarment and located a copper alloy signal. And so upon digging the signal um Mr. Green initially saw the chain of the lamp before uncovering the complete object which appeared to be sitting at top a ragstone outcrop. So, uh, once Sha very quickly realized that what they had was something very important, um, and very exciting and so they got in contact with the wonderful, um, group of people at the Kent Archaeological Society who came in to help them, um, sort of work out how to excavate and, um, kind of get a little bit more context about this object. And so, a 1 m by 1 m test pit was then excavated around the fine spot. Um, and this was to investigate for a potential horde or a grave cut, um, or some other associated features. And I will say here, um, when we spoke to a number of experts, um, in Rome, Romano British and, um, wider Roman Empire finds, everybody was betting on there being a burial here. So remember that. Um, within the test pit, um, a cut feature into the kind of in keeping with the wider site which has had many rabbit holes and burrows um found throughout. Um within this sort of disturbed feature uh the 24 shirts of pottery were recovered from likely above and around the fine spot of where the lamp had been. Beneath this was more natural ragstone and um sort of the clay geology of the surrounding area. Um, and what will be really exciting is as we get into the as Shall and the K get into the phases of writing up this site, um, hopefully we'll get sort of a lot more information about the context surrounding this area and a kind of, uh, more complete site interpretation, which will be really exciting to influence uh, how we're seeing this object and also the other objects that were found on the site. um which again are primarily third century but there is um other aspects to it as well. It's it's not a monolith in that respect. Lim is also an absolutely amazing uh area for this object to have been found. As I've said, Poris Lemanis, this was one of the British Saxon shore forts um alongside sites like uh Richborough and Portchester Castle. Um and these were military units that were built to protect the province against the Germanic raiders. um and poris lmanis like Charles fortlet again dates to the 3rd century AD and so it's not contemporary um when we're talking about this port with the lamp however we do have um evidence that there probably was an earlier naval base at the portus lmanus site with classis bratannicus uh bratannica stamp tiles and an early 2nd century inscribed altar stone of neptune having been found in the area so therefore this lamp may be able to provide us further evidence evidence for this earlier naval site and activity in the area. Um Liz Shaw's publication that I mentioned her B on this has indicated um that this lamp will further indic will further the discourse into the associations between plastic lamps and the imperial cult um due to its confirmed military setting. So there seems to be a lot of evidence to support that these lamps are even found in uh production contexts like at um potter studios. Um but also they seem to have probably been spread by the military along military routes like the Rine and that's probably how it's entered um our coastal area of Kent is probably with the military um coming through this area in the first century AD. So throughout my work on the lamp, its rarity became very apparent for all the reasons I probably listed. Um, and with my colleagues in the portable antiquity scheme and also at the British Museum, uh, we began discussing the new treasure addendum. Um, and to help you understand this fully, for those of you who aren't familiar, for those of you who are, I'm sorry, and you probably know treasure really well, and I'm going to tell you all about it again. Um but we're gonna discuss that and then that will help you to understand um how we've made this new designation of treasure and how we think this lamp fits into that. So treasure um looks quite scary to those who are uninitiated because it looks like a lot of options but once you've got them in your head they're very understandable and I think make a lot of sense. So the treasure act came into play in 1996 um and its main function is to um ensure that local museums get the opportunity to acquire objects that have been found in their area. So for example um if there is a lots of beautiful uh golden Iron Age coins that have been found in the Canterbury district um we will say there's 23 of them. will put these through treasure and Canterbury uh museum service the lovely beanie uh will get the opportunity to acquire it into their museum um and this happens through a process of lots of leazison that's a large part of my role um but it also um is facilitated by the British Museum and the valuation committee there to ensure that those who have reported their finds um will be able to receive a reward for them. So the main category of treasure and the one that everybody really thinks of is gold and silver precious metal objects which are over 300 years old. Um and this is sort of your medieval brooches or um your silver Viking yeah silver Viking ingots or something. Um the next one and is uh something that we deal with a lot actually in Kent is coin hordes. Um, and I think when people think of hordes, they think of huge metal deposits, um, hundreds of coins, thousands of coins. Um, but that's not quite how we class it in terms of treasure. Hoorde is basically a word to say that it is, um, coins that when they went into the ground, there was a clear association between them, whether that be in location or in date of deposition. So it could um mark out a huge hoorde, but it could also um represent a purse spill perhaps as well. Um so in this respect, if the coins are over 300 years old and there is two or more, two, three, four, they're made of gold and silver, they constitute treasure. Or if there are 10 or more copper alloy coins, um these also represent a horde and so are treasure. Um, another one that um I'm preparing for a move uh at the moment we're moving where we store our objects and so we have lots of these in Kent. We're very blessed um to have hordes of prehistoric metal work and this is again two or more um objects that were found together that we can say no they haven't just been spread by the plow soil together that these were um deposited in the same episode um that are prehistoric in date. So, this can be gold and silver again, but it could also be things that are made of copper alloy or from lead. For this, think uh primarily your bronze age ax hordes um and all the wonderful bits that go with them. One that people often um forget about, it's sort of an unsung hero of the treasure act is gold or silver coins which have been modified into objects. So, these are things like brooches or pendants. um we because they have transitioned from being a single coin into a gold or silver object over 300 years old. We always want to see those. Um and also crucially in this example um objects found from within the same oh I've put object. It should be the same context as any of the above. So if you found um 300 gold coins, those would be treasure. And if you found them in a black bernish wear container vessel, that then would also become treasure by association. So hopefully you're all still here. No one's fallen asleep or run away while I talk about treasure. Um because this is the exciting bit. This uh is our new 2023 addendum. So all of the original treasure uh classifications are still in place um to this day. I hope so. Otherwise, I wouldn't have as much to do. Um but also um towards 2023 um it became apparent that not all important uh classes of objects were being captured by the treasure act. Now obviously we can't um cover everything because then it becomes extremely difficult where to draw the line. But we realized there was some important objects such as um the cavalry helmets that were recently on display in the um Roman exhibition at the British Museum. These were getting missed because they were copper alloy. So they weren't um fulfilling any of the original criteria of treasure. Um and we also had another actually Roman find um the um figurine of which was copper alloy of a man wearing um the beerus bratannica which was um you know one of the first examples of a bit of artwork a bit of portable art showing um a Roman wearing a you know very um typ typically um British outfit. Sorry there's a fox right outside my window so it's um it's just sort of running around. It's very distracting. They're both sweet. Um, so we we knew we were missing um really important uh objects by treasure not having classification for these. And so after um lots of uh sort of work with not only um colleagues in the post of antiquity scheme in the British Museum but with um experts across the country and also those from outside of Britain and um with uh the government as well and the crown and the team at the DCMS. Um the 2023 addendum was implemented and this um as you can all see on the screen says that a find may be potential treasure if it does not meet the above criteria but it is of made at least partially of metal is at least 200 years old and provides exceptional insight into an aspect of national or regional history archaeology or culture by virtue of one or more of the following. So the key bit there is it's got to be at least a little bit metal. So, our absolutely fabulous Triton statue that was discovered in North Kent. Um, I did ask and I really was hoping it would have some sort of rusty iron nail in the bottom of it. Um, but it didn't. It was completely made of stone. So, it did not class as treasure under this um addendum. Um, so it has to be made of metal. It has to be over 200 years old. And it has to provide an exceptional insight either by being extremely rare. You can see where I'm going with this. um its location has to be pertinent or it has to have a specific connection with a particular person or event. So say we have to be able to link uh the object via its design directly to Henry VII and we know that it had um a direct association with that person probably usage by them. Um so we're not we're not asking for too much of course. Um so our argument for significance for the lamp is actually I think very obvious. Um which has been helpful. Um we believe that the limb lamp meets this new criterion because of the basics. It is certainly over 200 years old. There's no denying that and it is completely comprised of copper alloy. It also qualifies as it's the only example of its type to have been found confirmed in Britain. Um, so it's very very rare. It's from a known area of Roman activity and it's going to further contribute to our understanding of the limb area and also these coastal regions of Kent during um the first century AD. And lastly, the pottery which we obviously cannot forget um is also treasure by its contextual association with the lamp. Um so currently just to give you all a bit of background um the report for the lamp that um I wrote with the help of Andy Ward has been approved um by the curators at the British Museum which is very exciting. Um and we have secured uh not only one museum's interest in acquiring but actually a backup as well. So that's really positive. Um and actually in a month are we the 17th? There we are. uh a month and a day from today um we actually have our inquest which is um a really important part in the treasure process. It's where if I say something is treasure because treasure belongs to the crown the coroners will come in and they will uh determine whether it is legally treasure um by fitting the criteria. And so this will be our first um significance treasure object to go through the process in Kent. It's also going only the second in the country. Um, as always, we were picked by Norfolk. Um, that always happens. They always get the first. Um, they had a singular coin of Guthram, the first um, coin of Guthram to be known in this country. Um, and so that went through treasure and I think has been acquired by the Norfolk Museum Service. But we have the first object um, the first in Kent and also the coolest obviously much better. Um, so we'll we'll keep you all posted with that because it's it's a really exciting time going forward. And hopefully once we have that coroner's inquest saying yes, um, then it will be going straight through the process to get it into the museum and to get it on display for people to see, which is really, really exciting. The picture on screen, I should say, is the lamp. Um, it's just it from the bottom. Uh, so you can see what it looks like on the inside and hopefully give us some indication of its um, manufacturer technique. So, this is the portion where we're going to try and get a bit creative and a bit crazy because I thought I'm talking to the Kent Archaeological Society. I've got to give you something um new to think about, especially for those of you who are in shall have heard me talk before. Um so, this is maybe where I lose all my credibility by giving you crazy theories to get your brains going. Um these questions on screen, the significance of the its contribution to this theory of use and deposition at known military sites. These were all things that came up um whilst Andy and I were writing the report. Um and so recently um I've just been trying to get quite creative and wonder if there are any answers to these. Uh I'll let you know. The answer is probably no because this is archaeology. Um, but I think the best way to come up with crazy ideas is to put them out there and see what people think. So, I would appreciate your ideas and insights after this. Uh, lamps are not the only Roman footshaped objects. Uh, we also have, um, as I said before, we've got these, um, figurines. Um, we also have razor handles that are in the shape of sort of uh feet and maybe your sort of lower leg below the knee. Um, we also have brooches. Um, but something that really caught my attention and actually this this um this piece of work by Liz Shaw that I keep going back to, it's actually the the front of it. It's the cover image is um some glass containers in the shape of um sandal feet which are to store oil and perfume. And so if we just look at the size of this lamp, which as I say is is teeny tiny um palms sized, it's not going to be putting out a lot of light. Um and there's this brilliant graph that shows you um the different uh sizes of lamps and ours is really towards the smaller end. Some of them can be absolutely huge. Um, interestingly with foot lamps of uh copper alloy and ceramic varieties, they're rarely ever actually um what we would call human sized. They're usually either quite a bit smaller or they're massive. Um so they don't usually conform to the size of feet. So they're clearly not trying to be a accurate representation maybe of a specific individual's, you know, literal foot like a cast. Um, so this one is much on the small is it's it's far smaller than the others and so the output of light would be really quite minimal. Um, one thing that it would be really exciting to do and Andy and I are hoping once this has gone through the treasure process um we've been talking about maybe getting um a reproduction of this to kind of do some experimental experimental archaeology, put some oil in one and see how long it burns for and how much light it would actually emit. Um therefore, um I think because of these also footshaped containers that um held perfumed oils and things, I think the size of this lamp actually suggests that it was highly unlikely that its primary function was lighting and perhaps instead it was for scent. Um think your scented candles of today really. Um and that yes, it would have provided the visual, but I think also the old factory is something that maybe we're missing when we look at it today. And actually that um sensory factor would have been really quite important to this object. Um it should also be noted that over half of the foot lamps with known fine spots relate to ritual activities. Do it that way you will. Um we'll try and dive a bit deeper and we'll try and define the kind of ritual activities these are. So 33 foot lamps have been included in burials. Um and they would have formed part of the burial rights probably lighting um but also again scent and burial rights as today will often try and evoke um links to feasting which is particularly interesting when we have these um links to the flag as well. So there's um a lot being put forward here only by really two objects. Um it does have these quite clear links to feasting. Um when this assemblage was first found um as I said it was highly recommended that Sha return to identify the possible burial but no human remains were found present um in this excavation. And so um what I'm going to put on the screen hopefully won't be too sensitive to those but just as a little warning um because it shows a roadside memorial um but I won't have it on screen for too long. Um many of us have seen these um they're sort of loving memorials which have been devoted to people who have passed usually in that location um like beside roads. Um and we're also aware of the ideas of modern memorials or senotaps um to memorialize the dead without physically having their human remains in that place. Um, and so from this idea sort of all the literature was really pointing that these objects should have some kind of ritual function, whether that be found at a temple site or within water or primarily within a burial. Um, I sort of started falling down this rabbit hole of graveless grave goods or funeral hordes. Um, and actually the stunning late Iron Age Horde from Melmbby, which I've just popped on screen, um, is still in its really early stages of being investigated because, um, it's huge. It's going to take the amazing team, I imagine, quite a while to get through it. But kind of a very early theory, um, that they're having, which has been, uh, put forward for other hordes and activities before, is that maybe this is a burial monument, but without the human remains present. Um, another example of this from prehistory more locally is the late middle bronze age cemetery of Pokestown. And um, of the cremations present there, only 56% of them, and so only about half actually, um, observed burnt human bone. The rest of them had no human remains, um, but was styled very similarly. So, um, identical grave goods, um, same amount of py material put into the vessels, and the vessels were all very similar to the ones that had human bone. Um, the only difference was they lacked any kind of, um, human remain. Another one, um, is the late Iron Age cemetery of West Hampnit. Um, only 13 of 161 cremation deposits did not uh have bone, but they did all have p material and were seeming to be indicating that they were uh appearing like cremations. Um, so we do have a late prehistoric tradition in the southeast of uh cremation deposits but without human remains. And as I said, the um the Oh, that's a bit premature. the uh lamps uh copper alloy foot lamps are really highly associated with burial and these burials are primarily um cremations and the the foot lamps in these burials are all very small and the limb lamp actually fits perfectly uh within this range sort of right uh in the middle. Um, and so I've sort of been having these ideas that possibly this is a more votive deposit and maybe it does uh represent one of these funeral hordes or um a commemorative deposit. You've got to remember we're right um at the site of the ancient coastline here as well. Um which is quite interesting. And so I've kind of been fleshing these ideas out a little bit more to see if they sound a little bit mad. Um, but we also should remember that this these objects, the lamp and the pottery could also just be um accidental uh losses. You know, they they're really high status objects. So, if someone lost them, they would be furious. But could it be that um this is maybe from a wider episode of deposition that we're not seeing um whereby something has happened and these have uh not been intended to enter the ground in the way that they have? Um, I don't know if we'll ever know, but I think it is interesting to kind of look at um, other alternatives that haven't been thought of before. So, hopefully you all don't think I'm absolutely barmy. Um, but if you have thoughts on how these objects maybe got into the ground or why they've been placed there, what function they would have played, uh, maybe to the people who owned them or interacted with them, I'd love to hear it. Um Andy and I are kind of looking at writing um more formally about this lamp because previously um foot lamps in particular have been really poorly um recorded in terms of where they've been found and in what context. And so our example for that reason is really exciting. The limb lamp we have um actual site uh drawings to go with it um and video of when it was found which is just incredible. That's so much more context than most examples have. And so Andy and I are looking to publish about this article um once it's gone through the treasure process to make sure that information is out there and accessible. So any ideas are more than welcome. Um I'd like to say a huge thank you again to Shall who reported this object to the K and also to myself which has meant that we've got to do this amazing research into it. Um and I'd also like to thank the K for having me and to yourselves because you have paid attention to me for about 40 minutes. So, thank you very very much. Um, and if you have any questions, I would love to hear them and I might try to answer them. I can't make any promises. Thank you, Isabelle. Thank you so much. What an incredible find and it's amazing to to hear the process involved in its discovery and and the subsequent story of it so far. So, still a story to to come. Um, yeah, I love the idea of a 2,000-y old Yankee candle. That was brilliant. And um, but also I think what will be really amazing to to see is the opportunity for um, experimental archaeology on it. if we can recreate it and get an idea of of its use and the um what it looks like when it's lit, you know, what sort of level of scent you could get from it, if it's uh if that is indeed what it what it was for. I do wonder if the um the fox at your window might be one of the ancient spirits from that that burial monument in the middle in the middle of town. I've never seen one here before and it was just Yeah, very distracting. I should say actually that when I spoke to the wider group at Shall as well, they um put forward some really interesting um thoughts about maybe how this would have had because a lot of them also have lids at the top as well. Um and we don't have any presence of kind of basically a cap lid like you'd have on an old teapot. We don't have any of that. Um and so maybe how these would have been attached if there were one. Um, and also, um, again, sort of what the experimental can possibly tell us about how it was attached. Cuz like I said, most of these lamps have handles, and ours has a hook and a chain, and the hook has quite a large spike on it. Is that for putting it into a wooden structure, or there's all these questions that it's quite fragile, so I haven't played with it too much, but a kind of version that we could play with would be really interesting to answer those. I was curious about the the hook. Um presum obviously it's for for hanging the lamp, but is it hanging when it's lit or is it hanging to transport it around? Because obviously you can't hang it from your belt and light it. That wouldn't be the most brave it. Um yeah, I mean when you when you hold it upright and you hang it, it does hang evenly. But um as kind of my conversations with other people in the studying history archaeology and limb group, they were saying, you know, you'd have to hang it from the right kind of attachment so that the the back of the lamp wouldn't hit the wall or the structure that it was against. So it would probably have to be kind of maybe a bar sticking out from the say a wall and then it hung onto. So it kind of um you think it's got to have quite a defined way of suspending it which is quite interesting. It's very small, isn't it? So even if you if you were hanging it far away, you'd barely. Anyway, this is probably all going to I can't keep talking because we do have some question. If you have any questions, please do um put them into the chat box and I will ask them. So I'm going to quickly go through these now and see. Obviously there's a lot of comments from people just agreeing with various things you said. And I think Liz Shaw, who you mentioned several times um through the talk, has said she's pleased her her research was useful. Um, very I'm Yeah, I'm slightly shy that you're here, Liz, because it was pretty invaluable to us. Very helpful. There was a question. Would flying feet be associated with the god Mercury? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I think as Liz has said, Yeah, absolutely. Um, and so there's kind of other ones that have been interpreted in that way as well. So, and you think as well with it being suspended unlike some of the others, that's a really exciting um idea. Yeah. Mhm. And Neil, who is the finder, I believe that's right, isn't it? He said, "I wonder if adding um if it was for adding scents to a shrine like you you have suggested." Um Sandra has asked um I have four Henry 7th coins which appear silver and impress pristine condition. Are they treasure? Oh, good question, Sandra. um if they were all found together. So if you think um that either they were maybe put in the ground in one hole together or maybe they were together and they've maybe been spread by a plow. We see that quite a lot with metal detecting finds. Um then yes, they would class as treasure. Yeah. Do take them into Isabel if they were in the K. Yeah, definitely come and have a when we've moved offices, do come and bring them to me and we'll have a look. Especially if they're in pristine condition, that would be lovely. Um, we've got lots more thanks. I'll send you all the thanks and and praise for a wonderful, interesting, informative talk. Um, later David Hullman has asked, "Is there any sign of the lamp having been used?" It's really, it's been hard to know to be perfectly honest. Um because the the inside I think you saw from those pictures it hasn't there isn't any kind of um visible trace that we can see of any kind of soot or burning or anything like that. There doesn't be seem to be too much um difference in the internal structure of it either. Um so yeah we're not 100% sure and it's why this is also I should have mentioned really when an object is going through the treasure process we're quite limited on what kind of um scientific work we can do on it and that is because we cannot do any work on an object that is going to impact its value whether positively or negatively. Um so I I you know if someone does bring me um four Henry the 7th coins I can clean them to an extent to identify the object but then I can't do any more than that. Um so I can't make them look lovely basically. So these are all kind of questions which will be really exciting to maybe have answered once it's been acquired so that um clever people can look at it. A desk lamp rather than a room lamp is yeah just a really lovely idea as well you think. Yeah. Sorry let's do that's it. Yeah. Could it have been a desk lamp rather than the room lamp, which I guess you you will only find out um with a bit of experimental archaeology perhaps? Yeah. Um so Helen has said the lamp and pottery could have been stolen and dumped. Does that seem like something that could have been happened by the archaeology that was uh I see no reason why not because they're they're two really high status items. um you'd be absolutely furious if your your lamp got stolen. Um and so yeah, I don't see I don't see why not. And obviously we don't know whether it was um directly associated with whatever this earlier site at limb may have been. Um so yeah, quite quite possible. There have to be a good reason for it to be dumped again if it was such a high status. Exactly. Um, so Neil has said uh when he found it, the hook was above the stone wall and the shoe was underneath. The stone had to be moved aside to recover them. So it sounds quite deliberate perhaps. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? It almost sounds like, you know, if the stone is above it, is that some kind of ceiling ceiling deposit layer or something to kind of keep it down? Is quite interesting. It's yeah quite quite helpful really that the hook was above the stone otherwise we might not have got such a good signal. So yeah or just smashed it out. Yeah, I should say as well actually the from I presume it's the same with Sha um limb site but with the Stful Castle the site of Porters Lmanis um that has suffered some really quite severe subsidance um over the you know goodness knows how long but at least over the last 100 years and so that can also um cause issues with maybe how we're interpreting things because there has been quite substantial movement let alone then putting in the kind of rabbits that seem to be running rabid around the area. It does seem to be on a bit of a slope quite so um Greg has asked could it be used in the military tent? Don't see why not. This is it. And and yeah, Liz's work um I'm sure she could say more about it if she'd like, but um there is this kind of correlation between the the lamps and the military um or at least being um uh brought along military roots as well. Um, so quite possibly it's sort of infuriating in some ways because you have this most incredible object. Um, and it's one of those where you really wish you could just kind of get an Atardis and just see what was going on with it because it generates all these questions and I would really like to know the answers. Can I just ask again? Sorry. Then this is I may have missed it but the lamp itself um is it first century you think the the actual lamp in there? I should say that's mainly third century. Yeah. And it seems to be although um I think David Hullman is here so he might be able to correct me. I think there have been coins from other periods found on the kind of wider site. But um the reason we're dating this example as first century AD is cuz it um best matches up with other examples. But also because that um example that I showed from London um that was from within the Buudacan revolt layers. So that was quite um you know that was kind of a really nice example of a securely dated one that ours seems to be kind of comparable to. Um Sandra has said she'd love to meet you regarding the coins. So if um you can maybe put your email absolutely we can distribute it afterwards in in an email um how to get in touch with you to talk about treasure stuff. Um, Nicholas has asked, "How about used to render a privileless pongi?" Oh, [Music] if it is, that would be the most um that would be I'm trying to think of a good example. That would be like the rits of um toilets, I think, really. So, potentially, but I think that would be um that would be rather pos. Yeah. Yeah, it would be quite fancy with a a foot as well. Troy, hello Troy, how you doing? Um, Troy, good friend of mine. He has asked, "Do you have any say in which museum the items are found or donated? The items are donated to or given to or who gets to buy them." So with um one of the really I've got very lots of very nice aspects in my role but one of them is keeping up with the so we um the museums that can acquire have to be accredited and so I get the privilege of kind of um keeping in touch with all those curators and we um always sort of have chats about what it is that local museums are actually looking at um acquiring. So a really good example in Kent is Dover. Um for anybody who hasn't been you have to go. It's amazing. We have the Bronze Age um boat gallery in Dova, which is incredible. And so uh Do have an interest in anything that has been found in Dova district, but also they will collect uh objects from outside of the Dova district if they have um a link to the Bronze Age or as a really good example. Um so it kind of depends on the museum. So what part of my role is um when treasures at that stage I will um email the relevant museum and see if they're interested in acquiring the object. Um some are quite strict about the kind of geographical par parameters from which they take from. Um others are a bit more loose. So it just kind of comes into that really is to um what they're after and whether our object fits into that. Um and if there is something uh some objects that are either exceedingly important or maybe that um we don't have scope for locally to be taken in because unfortunately an issue at the moment is that um museums don't have the most funding to take objects um especially in Kent um which is is unfortunate but it is sort of how it is at the moment with the economy and um so the British Museum will sometimes step in and take objects um that can't be acquired locally which is a really great option to have um or just a really nice other example, I had um a pendant recently that was a coin that had been etched um to have a Hashem symbol, which is the Jewish symbol for God. Um and so that was really amazing. And there's actually not many objects that relate to um Judaism in Britain that aren't sort of, you know, actual u religious objects like I don't know, Torah, uh scrolls and things like that. So, um, that one is going to the Jewish Museum in London because that's where we decided it was best place to go. So, I have a bit of a say, but not all of the say is the the short answer. Okay, brilliant. Um, Neil has said the key ring was found further down the side of the collapsed wall. I wonder also where these special were these special deposits considering no signs of burning. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So this is what I mean by my idea that I presented to you is a bit wild and wacky, but really just because it's quite interesting to kind of think about all these things that are really outside. So I I will admit I'm not saying that it is definitely one of these um graveless grave deposits, but I just thought it was an exciting idea um because we do we don't have any sign of burning. So um yeah, it raises a lot of questions as to what this actually was and how it got there really. Um, but I think with an object this special in significance, we can kind of think of it outside the box and kind of all ideas are valid until proven otherwise. I think we do we have any idea about because I noticed the bottom is no longer there, right? So, do we have any idea about how that the bottom what the bottom was made of and how it was made or was that just gone with Well, um some of them some of them seem to have quite um secure bases and then there I think there are a number that have been found with their bases detached. Um which again is quite interesting because um it's it's not a very functional object if you can't trust the base not to fall off. um which maybe it was more secure when it was deposited. Um but the the actual lamp is molded sort of the the top part is molded so well and it's got quite a thick wall and then the base is really thin. Um and so I don't I I don't think it's been kind of um like with some objects you see examples of where they've been broken apart to take them out of use. Um, I don't think that's the case in with this object because the chain is still intact and the um the hook and everything. So, yeah, it's kind of I'm not sure why it's not attached anymore. I pres my presumption is it's been soldered, but the the base of the um sort of the lamp where the the the base would have attached to the upper part. That upper part is a little bit worn now, so it's kind of hard to tell. But maybe look at it. the foot was at the bottom, wouldn't it be like the last thing to get damaged or I don't know. Anyway, so Liz has said to me the smallness of the lamp and the flag found with it suggest some kind of ritual deposit. Yes, I like the idea of a memorial grave with no human remains. And Neil says, is it possible that the rabbit burrows have damaged the grave deposits further down? Uh there came a point where we were still digging looking for further parts of the dishwith. Well, possibly although just because it seemed like the pottery was quite well distributed around the lamp, but then again we are missing some of it. Um I just I think as well with the quality of the diggers you have on that site, I think if there were indication of a grave, you probably would have found it, you know. Um, so I doubt it. It would be interesting to know if the the SH team maybe will look at excavating that area in future because it was originally I think I said in the presentation outside the scope of the original um excavation. So yeah, it would be very interesting. David, this last one from David Hullman. Uh, any soldering of the sole to the rest of the foot could have degraded causing it to separate. When the wing and bowl was lifted, one of the handles fell off for that reason. So, oh that's interesting, David. Yeah, that's a really good I think that's it. It's kind of one of these parts that would be really useful to look at in more detail as to why it's um and also I did quite a bit of experimental archaeology at uni, so I'm a bit biased, but I really think that is the next step. That's the key, right? That's where we're going. Object. Yes. All right. Thank you so much, Isabelle. Really appreciate it. What a fascinating talk. What a fascinating item. Um, everybody should keep their eyes open for when it gets through the treasure process and we can learn more about it and find out where it's going to go. So, um, thank you again and thank you all for coming today. Uh, as I say, we've got lots more coming up. So, please do keep your eye out for upcoming talks. On Thursday the 28th of August, we will have Steven Clifton giving an update on the East Morning Healing Sanctuary, a possible multi-phase religious site focused on the sacred water from a nearby spring with many unresolved questions still to be answered. On the 18th of September, we have the amazing Professor Dan Hicks discussing Pit Rivers in Kent, Musketry and Excavations, introducing the major reassessment of Pit Rivers work and life and the importance of Kent to his work and thinking during his time as instructor of musketry at Hyde and as inspector of ancient monuments. In October, it's our super special one. We have none other than our very own Jacob Scott talking to us, the tech man himself, uh, getting on with some super spooky ancient graffiti for our Halloween edition. So, Jacob will be in fancy dress, of course. And, um, he's going to kill me. Thursday the 20th of November, experimental archaeologist Alexander Reed will take a look at an early Anglo-Saxon sword from the cemetery at S and use experimental archaeology to explain how it was made. There you go. experimental archaeology. Again, it's the key uh and share the technologies available to the Saxon blacksmiths. In December, we will delve into Kent's medieval measurements with a talk from the amazing Dr. Christopher Monk. And in January, Jason Hoolot will be talking to us about medieval knife crime or um Henry VI martial arts, I believe. So, one of those songs. So, we've got loads to look forward to. Please stick around. Um for those as I mentioned earlier if you're not a member please do think about joining us it works out about £3 pound30 a month and you'll get a copy of our yearly journal archaeology caniana our bannual magazine regular newsletters exclusive access to our collections conferences selected events opportunities to get involved in excavations research project and everything Kent heritage check out the website for more details uh on these talks and a wide range of other upcoming Kentbas based events as well as how to become a member if you'reed interested. Thank you again, Isabelle, for that amazing talk. Um, and I hope to see you all again very soon. Good night.