The Ozengell Collection

Description: The latest in the series on online talks hosted by the KAS, featuring KAS Curator Andy Ward discussing the Anglo-Saxon Ozengell Collection. The Kent Archaeological Society purchased over 1700 items from the Anglo-Saxon collection in December 2022 when they were put up for auction at Rosebery’s, London. KAS curator Andy Ward has been working on cataloguing, curating, and researching this regionally significant cemetery collection. This zoom talk will demonstrate how the collection was initially discovered, its contents and how the society became involved in its preservation. The process of researching this collection has been a fascinating one and Andy will showcase some of the wonderful objects which it is the society’s privilege to be custodians of.

Transcript: okay well that's two minutes past so I am gonna get started hello welcome everyone good evening uh welcome to the third in our series of exclusive online talks for the Kent archaeological Society we want to bring the wonders of Kent history and Heritage direct to your screens in the comfort of your armchairs and living rooms and we have added even more excellent speakers to our lineup stretching into 2025 uh so more on that later hopefully tonight we'll go without any technical issues um and we'll run completely smoothly please bear with us if there are any issues we will try and get them fixed thankfully super Jacob is on hand to fix any challenges which may arise so fingers crossed uh none of that so we'll start with the housekeeping just to kick us off the talk will last around an hour after which we have time for questions if you have any please keep yourself on mute with your cameras off please um so that we can concentrate on our speaker and the presentation uh during the question and answer session you can either use the raise hand feature and we will unmute you when it's your turn to ask your question or if you prefer you can type your questions into the chat box and we will read those out for you I hope it goes without saying but please be courteous and polite to our speaker and to each other we're all friends here 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 included just send us an email and we will make sure that that happens so on to our speaker it is my great pleasure to welcome my friend and colleague and the curator of our society Andrew Wards Andy completed his undergraduate degree in ancient history his at the University of Kent and his master's degree in Heritage at the University of Wales Trinity St David he spent two years volunteering with the Kent's fins the aison officer Joe armit recording all the marvelous Treasures discovered here in Kent he worked as a historic environment record assistant for our near Neighbors in East Sussex and of course most recently he has been the curator for the Kent archaeological Society doing incredible work to understand our collections organize catalog and preserve our treasures and drive our society goal to bring the history and Heritage of Kent to everybody especially by engaging with our members and The Wider public at every opportunity like today Andy is blessed with a seemingly unlimited Cosmos of collected knowledge and more historic outfits replica weapons some of which He makes himself snazzy waste coats and cool gaming circles than anyone else I know alongside much to my shrin probably the coolest beard in Cass tonight Andy's going to be discussing the Anglo-Saxon oeno collection the society purchased over 1,700 items from the collection in December 2022 when they were put up for auction and Andy's been working on cataloging curating and researching The Collection he's going to take us on a journey of its initial Discovery its contents and how the society became involved in its preservation so Andy over to you okay let me just start my presentation there you go right can everybody see my presentation no that's a good start yeah how about now still no Jacob are you seeing it it should literally just tested it we did it was perfect try to reclaim Andy and then I'll make you host again okay now the technical difficulties are starting at the start of my presentation not halfway through right is that any better may not still seeing your delightful face I have a I have a feeling I know what is causing it let's try this right yeah I know what's causing it help if I click share screen wouldn't it there you go perfect there we go that's that's a good start right okay so off let me hide that presentation so I can see myself there we go so after some minor technical difficulties welcome everyone uh as Craig has very kindly said I'm Andy Ward I'm the curator for the Kent archaeological Society uh and I'd like to thank Craig for such a sterling introduction ction um and as Craig has mentioned this is one of our series of online lectures and hopefully you will join us for many more so for those of you who don't know who the Kent archaeological Society are I'd like to just run through a brief introduction and we were founded in 1857 shortly after Su in 1854 and Sussex in 1846 now in the 21st century we are a Charity Incorporated organization CIO with our aim being to bring the past to the present for everyone we have around 1300 members and if you aren't already a member uh we would highly recommend considering joining us and you can get involved in some of the volunteer projects that we run our excavations access to our society Library the society is based at Maidstone community support center but our library which Craig very uh well runs um is open to members and is accessible at Maidstone Museum who also house around 4,000 of our objects on a long-term loan and we're hoping to make our library and our collections more accessible to a larger audience in due courts the K is primarily a voluntary organization uh but it is run by a management team made up of paid members of Staff who then report to the Board of Trustees so the matter at hand the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery what it is and where is it uh to many the site is known as ozen or endon Grange which is uh how it was referred to by hasted where he placed it around 2 miles from ramcap when it was visited by the antiquarian Charles roach Smith in the 19th century it was bounded by Canterbury Road the Ramsgate and deal Railway line and on the west by an area known as Holland or Holland's bottom according to David Perkins who excavated the site in the 1970s and 80s the Canterbury Road or the a253 was anciently known as dun street now according to Charles Rich Smith the area was known as the butts uh which may possibly be a reference to upstanding grave Mounds or barrows during the 19th century or earlier or potentially related to um Sunday archery practice it's more likely the Barrow idea but I quite like the archery one as well so more recent years the trust for thanet archaeology led by jez Moody have updated the location of the graves uh as their exact location wasn't concrete this has then been added to the Kent archaeologically archaeology society's online map of archaeological features uh which can be found on our website the descriptions given from the cemetry places it west of the a256 which you can see on the screen there if I use my mouse correctly you can see coming through here the h Road um however as you can seen on this map the more modern map it in fact lies on the Eastern side as I mentioned the location for the Saxon Cemetery was incorrectly marked closer to the site of the Railway spot and and the railway plays quite a key part in the story of this site the reason for this appears that to be that some of the finds were recovered when um some spoil slipped during a storm leading to a masso with this area but interestingly only in the 1949 to 1973 map um from mman survey do we see mention of Roman remains being found which you can see um so here is the 1888 to 1915 map um from Ordinance survey which marks the Saxon Cemetery here this is the the kind of revetment for the uh the railway line and then you have that same location shown on this 1830s to 1880s map and then here is where we get the 1949 to 1973 map showing the Anglo Saxon burial ground and Roman remains found it's just off from aenul range the scheduled area uh so part of um the ozeno cemetery is a scheduled ancient monument and that scheduled area is south of ozeno Farmhouse which is just up here uh and it covers this area to the south of the Railway line extending kind of to this corner towards the power station um and that was put in in around the 8S kind of 83 84 um and it ascends to the corner of the HR round about and up towards the housing estate on the right which is the first phase of the master and green development um and some people closer to their area may be aware that uh Mar Phase 2 has been proposed for this area here which obviously lies outside the scheduled Monument area so the site itself and the excavations the first indication that there was something interesting below the ground at oen was when the ramcap to deal Railway line was being cut in 1846 at this point some Roman and 50 to 80 early medieval Graves were discovered most of these finds were sold off by enterprising Railway navies um who realized that some of these grave Goods could get them quite a lot of beer money and then eventually William Henry rol Esquire of Sandwich stepped in uh and secured the area of the graves now rolf's excavations uh recorded up of 100 Graves um with 13 of them being fully opened uh as scientifically as they could be at that time uh and these were seen by Charles roach Smith uh and you can see some of the Grave Goods here the finds from 1846 uh those not sold off by Workman ended up in the mayor collection World Museum Liverpool they were ini initially thought to be lost during World War II bombing of Liverpool City Museum um but thankfully they were found uh but they aren't currently on display they are installed but you can search uh their website for more details of those which is where this uh Keystone garment brooch uh is located jumping forward 120 years um further seven further Graves were discovered during uh pipe installation which is reported in archaeologia cantiana in volume 84 and the finds from this included a number of spearheads a weaving sword or weaving baton and copper and alloy and ivory items and these are now in ramcap public library um although again they're not on display uh at the moment they were identified by Sonia Chadwick Hawks as being part of the main Cemetery despite the location of the main burials being 600 m east on Ordinance survey Maps between 1977 and 1982 a series of excavations were carried out by the thanet excavations group The is of thanet archaeological unit and the thanet archaeological unit or the trust forthan archaeology unit it is this collection which will be the focus of my talk today excavations in 1977 led by Dr David Perkins of the thanet archaeological unit and uncovered 87 Graves uh which are the most Illustrated ones we have currently and around 230 Graves were excavated during that entire period reportedly a number of Graves had been previously destroyed but unrecorded um during construction of the never Farm housing estate 500 met east of the lord of the Mana and there were other excavations in the 70s by the than archaological unit um where some earlier Graves were discovered and then there was a further training excavation run by the is of thanet archaeological society and Trust for thanet archaeology between 2012 and 2013 led by Nigel mcferson Grant looking at more of the prehistoric um barrows that are in the area so how do we spot cemeteries um without digging in the summer of 1974 the land owner David Steed who I think think I spied in the uh chat there uh noticed lush green P patches of grass measuring 6ot um by 2ot these parch marks these are more Lush areas of green uh which result from deeper soil that allow the roots to delve further and grow taller H compared to their surrounding landscape and archaeologists use these marks to spot features just like those visible on Google Earth sorry for the red line there not sure how that's arrived um but you can see here these are some of the prehistoric barrows which were um excavated uh early in the 70s uh this one if I remember right is Barrow 4 and then in this image here you'll see a number of circular features spreading through this field and the eagle amongst you will notice these archaeological evaluation trenches which uh result from canbury Arch iCal trusts work in that area and so some of the graves and prehistoric barriers had been affected by plowing um while a number a small number of the excavated graves in 1977 appeared to have been Disturbed during or shortly after their interment 36 of the 87 Graves uh found in 77 appeared to be disturbed making up about 44% of the graves um but research currently suggests no pattern to these apparent cases of reopening so the ozeno collection in 2022 the KAS were made aware that Circa 1,700 objects belonging to the angular Saxon uh Oingo collection incorrectly described as a horde in some reports uh was being auctioned through roseb in London and this collection represented the finds from the 1977 to 1982 excavations carried out by the trust for thanet archaeology then the thanet archaeological unit under David Perkins around 230 Graves uh were recorded with many of them containing grave goods and the cemeter was dated at the time uh to the 6th to 7th Century ad although the Anglo-Saxon uh in Kent uh excavation database places the entire span of the cemetery from 475 to 725 ad and there'll be more on this shortly unfortunately other finds from The Collection including a claw Beaker uh pictured here were sold in 2011 uh which is obviously the entire prerogative of the land owner um the remaining 1700 objects were held on Loan in the pal cotton Museum in burington from 1983 to 2010 these were then returned to the landowner when the museum went through a process of returning non- accessioned material and KAS were made aware that these items were going up for sale and they stepped in to ensure that the collection remained whole and stayed within Kent and it's now been my job to catalog conserve and explore this wonderful collection but the it is important to raise that this site is one of many early medieval cemeteries which um Stuart Brooks and Sue Harrington describe as having undergone collection trauma um due to the many different excav ations that have taken place the antiquarian investigations more modern ones which haven't necessarily resulted in complete records in the way that we would like today and here are some the finds CT the photographs courtesy of Rose berries The Collection as well as containing items of iron and copper and silver included six Pottery vessels including this Bronze Age accessory cup here um or incense cup excavated from The Lord of the Mana Barrow 4 and you can read more about that particular item in the recent archaeologia cantiana volume 145 uh which has recently gone out to members so the finds the um the finds held within the collection provide evidence of the vast trading and influence Network that the kingdom of Kent had in the six and 7eventh centuries ad objects including garnets originating from Sri Lanka jewelry styles with Frankish and merovingi influence um and potentially other examples as well uh they all form part of the jewelry and goods that were deposited with the dead when they were buried um and Dr Andrew Richardson when uh who's one of my predecessors and an expert on this Cemetery an Anglo Saxon and cemeteries in general when the K were looking at purchasing this collection wrote this really quite eloquent statement that this Cemetery dates primarily to the sixth and 7th centuries ad when Kent was one of the wealthiest Kingdoms in the British Ares able to draw an extensive International networks that brought exotic goods and materials from across Europe and as far as the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean the finds in the collection reflect this Rich Heritage with high quality jewelry manufactured in East Kent found alongside imported goods from Europe Africa and Southern Asia so it provides a really good sense for us about how interconnected the early Medieval World was and particularly how interconnected Kent was given its location so near to the continent the connection was uh initially cataloged by roseb um but this was primarily to serve the function of putting the items up for auction when I joined the society in 2023 it was my task to fully catalog the collection and process the conservation estimate we had been given by CSI sitting born and this estimate had initially been put together by my predecessor Dr Elizabeth Blandon a very quick breakdown of the collection was given at the start of the project numbering around 582 objects the breakdown now is much larger totaling about 741 obviously this leaves a rather large disparity between 1,700 objects and 700 now this may be down to how the smaller objects have been counted in the past but what we're hoping is that once all the objects are back from conservation and repaired where possible we should be able to match out each of the written excavation records that we have with that of the physical object and but you can just see some of the examples of what we've already established so for example the um initial breakdown is this one here on the left so you'll see that we had 300 beads we now know there to be 422 quite a big in increase in numbers and same with things like uh the Shields and fittings they've increased our spear count has increased um our bro count has increased as things that weren't necessarily identified at the beginning h we've gradually learned more about so site phases as I mentioned earlier uh the primar primary area of the site is the sixth to 7th centuries ad which is reflected by the majority of the Grave Goods but we do have evidence of earlier phases within the site so work carried out by the trust forth archaeology and Dr Sue Hamilton and Stuart Brooks from University College London um we now have a phase plan of part of the Anglo Saxon Cemetery spanning the late 5th to early 8th Century so you can see uh phase one here which was the 1977 excavation carried out by David Perkins and then you have phases two and three so that runs the years 1980 to 1982 which covers this area here and this is the railway cutting for the um Ram get deal Railway line can deal Railway line and then the old Hae road coming through here um so the first phase covers 475 ad around about and then it increases 525 575 625 all the way up to 725 ad so it's a really long lived long spanning Cemetery site so some of the objects and um oh I've lost my hosting there Jacob thank you right can you all see the screen still yeah that's right great thanks um so yes as I was saying uh we have a number of very high quality uh objects like for example this Garnet Keystone brooch which I have here which if I just turn my camera back on you will be able to see me hopefully oh can't because you're seeing my screen that's why I will show this at the end then when we're doing the uh question and answers that's probably easier um so yes the um cast guilt silver and garet Keystone brooch orig we thought this might be an Avent type three and Avent did a whole typology of these centage broch types but Joe on further inspection uh thinks this might actually be a type two or three transitional example which is really inciting and interesting and dating to between 550 and 575 ad the reason we think that is because the zoomorphic elements which are these here H you'll have to tell me from it they are representing animals um on type two broaches of this style uh you usually get one um zoomorphic image in between two garnets in type three broaches you get double and so you get two zoomorphic elements but usually they're rotated 90° so it's a bit we've got a bit of a mix of styles going on in this one object uh the garnets themselves most likely originate ated in Sri Lanka um or somewhere in the Indian Ocean and then they've been traded through the continent before entering Britain through Kent the white paste in the center here um what it seems to be on close inspection that Joe looked at under the microscope is likely that's actually a later replacement for an earlier um either shell or glass that would have been in place there the reason we know this is the paste itself actually sits proud of the fitting um it should sit quite snugly um but it seems to have actually just been kind of forced into place and another really interesting element on this garet uh on this Garnet bro is this hole that you see in the right hand corner I thought this was later post post depositional damage or even um a deliberate piercing to to place a hole through it for wearing it in a different way um but Joe is actually fairly certain that this is potentially a casting floor and because the guilding that you'll see all around the edge that is actually placed over the edges of these holes so if it was later deposition you'd see damage around that guilding the fact that is there in place suggests it was there um from the very beginning um we also on the back it's really interesting is we still have the iron pin that's corroded into place and due to this most importantly we have mineral preserved Organics on the reverse where the iron pin has corroded and preserved evidence of the textile and this is something that I'm hoping to get looked into further um as we may be able to tell the exact weave found on the clothing that this brooch was once attached to so this brooch would have been placed on the clothing prior to burial and then the corrosion has preserved that organic material and it' be really interesting to see what kind of clothing the person buried in was wearing at the time um you'll also notice that most of the garnets are broken in some way and according to Joe's research this damage actually seems to have taken place before the garnets are even fitted um so they're actually placed into the frame broken um but we don't know why that is that's still quite unclear but these kind of research projects by subject experts are extremely important to the k um and also to the history of the collection and we want to be able to learn more about these objects now that they are in our care um and share that information with the wider public and academics and Society members so at the end of this I will get my video up and show you the The Broach in more detail now as archaeologists we all know the joy of finding something buried in the ground and learning it's older than your culture and seeing it in a museum or in some cases personal Collections and this Joy of finding something historic was clearly shared by the Anglo-Saxons as well in the collection we have a number of possibly reused or curated or imported objects um including this 7th Century gabison inlaid pendant which is this one here uh which is a Hayworth type P 9-b um for those artifact nerds out there that will be really interested with that and a really interesting element to this is on the back of the pendant is a a small hole which potentially is being used to um allow for escaping adhesive when the um Garnet was placed into the mount itself the only other place that we have that example of that technology um which you can just about see in this lower image here that little hole there the only other place we have that is um on some of the items in the staffer hord so that kind of shows the level of goldsmithing that we are getting uh in this area of Kent um and these items are still being debated as whether they are kentish or whether they are Frankish in origin the central object you can see here is is a McCree uh British plate brooch um dating from 200 to 350 ad um it's a Roman brooch with mil Fury decoration now potentially um this is a curated object so a object that an Anglo Saxon person has found kept because of its beauty because of its age you know maybe not knowing what it is but but keeping it because of Aesthetics or as we know from the earlier 19th century there is Roman activity in the area so it could be an intrusive uh object within the grave but we'll only really know that when we start looking more closely at the grave plans that we have um and understanding where on the body or within the grave this was found if it was found kind of on the body it's suggestive more of a deliberate curation and placement if it's found within the fill of the grave then potentially it's intrusive we also have another Roman item which is this uh Roman AER strap end dating to about 350 to 450 ad uh on the original files that that were provided to us it was just recorded as a copper object and but luckily when me and Elizabeth Blandon were looking at this for the temporary um exhibition in Maidstone we both know exactly what this was and we're able to confirm it it is a ro Roman am for strap end and to this would have sat at the end of a a Roman Legionnaire's leather Bell basically and finally we have this small inlaid uh glass Frankish brooch dating to the fifth or 6th Century ad and but possibly as early as early as 475 ad now for those of you uh from iotus um who have seen this talk in person you might remember that I thought although we thought initially that this might be a Iberian viy Gothic broch because they have very similar style broaches but Joe is fairly confident now that this is Frankish in origin given the the colors used and the the clo a decoration use on it um so I just like to say thank you to Joe for producing such a useful review of these Garnet items and these will um feature in our collections management system for all our collections but specifically for rozen girl um where we'll be able to add more and more research as and when um that research is carried out so an interesting Discovery um one of the spears from ozen uh from gra2 contained a very small but very interesting addition and it was only during close examination of the collection that we've spotted some of these more interesting elements um obviously we have the mineral preserved Organics that I mentioned on the brooch and we have that across the collection and but one of my personal favorites is this small item on one of the spearheads from as I said grave 112 which is this item here this small bow and arrow shaped Mark it's extremely small I mean you it's really hard to spot in this wider picture you can just about see there and how it's managed to survive the laminating iron is you know very lucky for us as archaeologists um because it could quite easily have been lost over time and this would have been added to the iron spearhead once the metal was C and forged uh channels would have been carved into the blade and then the non- feris inlay in this case we think it's gold although we haven't um had it checked with xrf or sem to be 100% sure uh would then be hammered into place the exact reason for these marks is much debated they could be maker marks or some form of a popic or magical Mark so other examples of these have been found across Britain uh and across Kent uh including Buckland in DOA where they had a bow and arrow but different to our one and a clashing Shield wall which was found on one spearhead they were on both sides of that item H and then also from SAR famous cemeter at s and currently on display in the new archaeology lives in our landscape Gallery um we have the sword blade uh which has an inlaid sword blade on it just here um now why have a sword blade on a sword it could be a magical Mark um giving your blade more striking strength less risk of shattering that sort of thing bow and arrows potentially representative of giving your throw more accuracy or something along those lines The Shield will being about the spear being able to smash through defenses we will never know these are all uh subjective ideas there is a thought that these are potentially maker marks uh something which a workshop would would stamp into their blades to show it's their their work the problem with that is that almost every example that we have are completely unique so there's no standard style across every example they are all individual which for a maker mark would be pretty useless you know you want something that is consistent that people can recognize for example um the famous ubert early medieval swords which carry the Uber name and are bar a few which might be later forgeries are mostly the same style um which you know shows a addition spanning more than 300 years now the way these would be made is non- feris or nonon inlays as I said would be sunk into channels uh carved out by chisels to hold the wire in place uh and then hammered into place but inlays made um because inlays made from materials other than iron um could be placed into the finished weapon so the sword blade would be cold you chisel it out hammer in the inlay um if you wanted to put in iron or pattern welded inlays these have to be placed when the blade is hot when you're still in the forging process and because otherwise you're going to create a weakness in the blade and the iron is going to be at different temperatures and then it will potentially shatter one of the major problems with the ozeno collection was the use of polyurethane foam uh this foam quickly yellows and begins to degrade releasing harmful gases that can damage both people and objects um the foam in most boxes was completely disintegrating getting trapped in the crevices of corroded objects um and thankfully these have now being or in the process of being carefully removed under microscope by a wonderful team of volunteers at CSR sitting born so in 2023 we appointed sorn and Dana Goodburn Brown and um and her team to conserve the entire collection the objects had been previously conserved by the ancient monuments laboratory and The Institute of archaeology uh so we do have some conservation records so we know what pre previous treatments have been carried out and the polyurethane foam and the the pink silica gel these were you know the height of conservation at the time we now know different we we use different materials and so it's it's right that we're now starting to change those and repack them so as I said they were mostly packed in yellow polyurethane foam and not only does this off gas which potentially harms the the when they're in their boxes but they're also slowly disintegrating getting stuck in all of the delicate intricate objects the laminating iron and being really a massive nightmare um so the entire colle action is going to be repackaged in grave order and previously they were kind of placed together based on year that are excavated we're going to be placing them in grave order which will make research a lot easier um and they're going to be placed in conservation appropriate materials the pink silica gel um that was used at the time we no longer use um one the these examples being from the ' 80s they're no longer absorbing the moisture and protecting the the metal work um but pink self- indicating silica gel has also been deemed as carcinogenic so really not something the volunteers or myself or researchers need to be spending any length of time around you'll see one of the volunteers there Laura Jane who I think I saw in the chat as well um cleaning some of the objects under microscope is that is how fine some of these polyurethane um fragments have come that you need a microscope uh in order to actually remove them carefully so these are just some of the activities that the team at CSR sitting born have been undertaking for us much of the iron work in the collection was beginning to delaminate where layers of iron Begin to Fall Away due to the rust and these are strengthened with a chemical compound which you can see being injected here um to ensure their stability into the future and all of the volunteers in the team uh have had the chance to examine the objects in person checking the documentation that we have was present and correct and for the right object seeing whether an x-ray had previously been taken because some of these objects have been x-ray um and then begin the phase of re bagging and repackaging into um correct material so these are some of the packages so they would often have an ancient monuments laboratory label giving you the photo number the X-ray number the grave the small find the date of excavation uh this is the lab number uh these K numbers for the ancient monuments Laboratory um and then we have some which are for um The Institute of archaeology as well uh and you can see more of the volunteers here checking the documentation um under one of Dana's interns and also checking the X-ray and some x-rays have been taken by the team and then some we already had um and so yeah it's a really useful project having these Volunteers in place um the hard work of the dedicated volunteers and staff at CSR sitting born has meant that more of the objects are now in new packaging stable and suitable for display and further research um we started off with about 50 9 boxes uh containing all of the items in the collection and we have got through nearly probably 65 70% of them um currently the spears are undergoing work and a few other littler items and then we'll be kind of on the last home stretch which would be really good to get these all all done um and without the work of the volunteers it would have been a long and drawn out process to make use of the collection while it's important that the society secures the collection for future research so stabilizing material so that it will last another 150 years um we also need to carry out conservation work to ensure that we can use these objects now for uh research for display for education and and all s of these ideas that we we have around the collection um this is of course a costly Endeavor and funding will be needed to secure all the materials staff time packaging items and ongoing treatments for the future and we also planning to create ongoing projects around the collection which will enable us to secure grants from the wide range of organizations and so do keep an eye on our website and all our updates that's where they will go prior to the collection coming into our possession uh some of the ozen girl collection had been on display at the pal cotton Museum in birchington qu Park uh until about 2010 um since then it has not been on display until the society were able to arrange for a temporary Exhibition at midad Museum uh this display ran for 6 months in 2023 ending in December and and other elements of the collection have recently gone on display at CSR sitting born uh which you can see here is located in the Forum shop Center in sitting born um and they've been showcasing not only the completed objects but those which are still undergoing conservation treatment uh and it's really great to have this display not too far from their location of origin but it is hoped that we can provide further displays in due course and ideally on the aisle of thanet itself most recently we have been pleased to be joined by a university placement from the University of reading Holly who is working on illustrating all of the society's collections um and this includes illustrating more of the ozen girl collection illustrations were made of the first 1 to 87 Graves the uh David Perkins excavated in 1977 which is what you can see here this is the Keystone Garnet brooch I showed you earlier um Illustrated for ready basically ready for publication um and illustration is a bit of a Dying art um and so we really Keen to be encouraging this new student to get involved and uh put the work together which you can see just in the bottom here the different scales of the Keystone Garnet broch being done again uh and Holly measuring up the different elements of the brooch there um what we hope to do is illustrate as well as illustra all of them um is to illustrate Graves from the finds from graves from 87 through 230 which will then give us a complete illustration of the entire cemetry collection and then hopefully through the study of these items in the detail we will be able to identify exactly where they came from um in the graves even though we don't have the full finds list at the moment so the next steps this has been a very broad overview of the Journey of the o conservation and its history um but there's still a little way to go we need to complete the conservation work and repackage the collection by grave this will allow us to more easily produce objects for researchers um for academics for digitization projects that sort of thing we want to arrange Research into individual object types um as well as the overall assemblage so we want to get research that looks at oen place within wider anglosaxon cemeteries um the individual brooch types um because we have quite a number of broaches that that are unusual for our area we want to digitize the entire collection for placement on the ks website and this is part of our wide arraign of creating a collection management system for the society whereby you can see exactly what we hold view images 3D models and request access for research and we also have uh in the works um still undergoing discussion proposed joint project with the trust foret archaeology to digitize the paper archive for the 1977 to 1982 work because they have um the majority of the paper archive um and we really want to try and work with them to digitize this uh to make it more accessible and so that we can match up with the physical objects and the illustration so these are just some of the references if anybody wants any of these you can email the society and I can send them over to you um if anybody wants to do any further reading what we'll do then is thank you very much for for coming and joining us I'll give a quick showcase I'll close the presentation and um do a quick Showcase of some of the objects I've got with me and then I'll be happy to answer any questions people may have thanks stop sharing Jacob can you make me host again please and you should be host now but I will reclaim if you want and then make you host again uh yeah it's just so that I can ah there we go can everybody see me yeah yeah cool right let me unblur my background so this is the Keystone Garnet BR and I don't know how well this is going to work there we go so as you can see there are the three very beautiful garnets um that would have originally um come from Sri Lanka or the Indian Ocean you've then got the Gilded surface all around the top and it's silver guilt so on the back you see the silver and the the corroded elements of the pin bar and the um textiles which won't show up very well on a video this uh works better in person but these objects will be coming on display with us whenever we do our Outreach days uh and I'm more than happy to wax lyrical about them the other bro that we have which I didn't show my presentation but is on the main screen is this one here uh so this is a chip carve decorated uh disc broch with kind of animalistic um intertwined figures uh around its Edge and there's a really interesting story with this brooch um this this is the original one this is the the 7th Century um disc brooch there is a replica disc brooch uh which was made at the same time during the excavation we're not entirely sure and um at some point oh there Jesse Joe's in there I hope you mean this one Joe or the other one that's the back of the the garnet disc broo Joe means this one that's the back very plain um yeah a very very plain bro but the the replica that was made very clearly replica it's made out of clay of a silver clay of some form um for some reason that was uh identified as the real one and then um one of at some point uh the some beads were attached to it uh with an iron strip and we're not entirely sure why um and yeah it's quite an interesting object but this um this approach is actually the one which eventually became the is ofth archaeological society's logo so for any iotas members out there uh you will recognize that very regularly and then yeah that's kind of my presentation done unless there are any questions and Craig if you want to leaz with yeah fantastic thank you so much Andy that was amazing um what a what a collection what a site and uh how lucky we are to have such an amazing collection at the society in our care so I'm gonna jump straight into the questions because we already have some um anyone has any questions please uh throw them in the chat box and I will get to them as we go so start here Jules has asked a few questions so I'll I'll do them in the first two are how does the hole relate to the pin I presume that was in one of the earlier H is that for the the cabachon pendant or for the garnet disc bro I'm not entirely sure it was if it's a pin it will be the garnet disc bro which um so I don't know if it will show very well on here so here is the attachment point for the pin so the pin would come through here uh the the top of the pin is here Joe armit as he's in the chat will correct me if I'm talking complete rubbish um but then this is the the foot where the where the pin would rest or the pin rest and hopefully that answers your question jws and you are more than welcome to email me if you have any more detailed questions that I can't answer here and the other the other question there was do you know if the textile is cellulous or animal fiber uh I don't know at the moment that is one of the questions we would love to get answered at some point Joe a has said um I don't think this is a question I think it's just a it says I would say I'd like to get the sem at CSI on the whole to be certain of my on the guilding before anyone calls me out yeah that's that's fair and it is something that we would definitely uh want to do uh I'm gonna go to Corin do you know what the adhesive was made from on the pendant no that again would be something that uh potentially under an SCM micos we might be able to see if there's any adhesive still there um or any residue of that adhesive and then and then test it from there but at the moment no we don't it's it's pure conjecture how they would have done it but it would have been probably you know it would have been natural it would have been animal fat or tree a tree derived product uh jwes oh yes also so Nicholas asked how to access the cast online map of archaeological features across the county that you mentioned but I think that um Jacob has put a link in the chat there under that question so you should be able to get onto it from there yeah if the link is in there that's great if not yeah go on our website um you'll see resources map and I think if I remember correctly because I was looking it this morning it's the second or third map down okay George asked on the inlaid pendant is the stone a kashon or flat uh it is a cavason yes it probably doesn't show well in the picture but I don't yeah it is it is a cabon it is uh sitting bulbous bulbous and how do we know the glass is inlaid and not enamel um on the Keystone garet one uh I will bow to Joe alit's better to knowledge of these the that they are uh inlaid garnets rather than an Amel that's a very cheating answer uh Joe a I think is Joe is that right yeah that will be oh I think they're referring to the Frankish brige oh that would be um that would be this one uh so yes we can we can see you can't see very well in this picture but they are very thin uh broken layers of glass rather than enamel but uh again this would be something that some scientific testing or uh viewing it under a very high powered microscope would be able to confirm for definite so everything I've said in terms of what these objects are and and how they were made is based on what we know of similar object types um but can only be confirmed by further research thank you Joe has asked would you be thinking of producing a catalog and similar like byrons had published in a journal also would that publication if it would happen include the traumatized material that has left the county through sale or Museum acquisition yes so I would love to make a catalog of of the anglosaxon collection I'd love to do another you know George Payne style 19th century catalog like we have for um all our 19th century material or things that are in the museum in the 19th century I would love to do an object catalog that is obviously something that requires time understanding of our collections in full money uh and funding but it's certainly something that I would love to get done um yes if I can track down some of the uh traumatized material I'm glad Joe that you mentioned trauma because um yeah the collection's trauma that byrons and SAR and liming and ozen have faced it would be lovely to be able to try and improve that um so yeah very much on my mind as a as a possible project thank you Dave has asked um or has said noted that the hole in the broo appears at the end of a crack was the hole put in to stop the crack propagating uh it could it could be I I suppose I am not a jeweler a Craftsman so I would want to speak to someone who works with silver and guilding on and casting um about whether that is possible um if Alex I'm sure I saw Alex Reed in here somewhere um who is our student ambassador and and our bronze caster and yeah it might be something I need to discuss with him about whether putting in a small hole would stop the crack um but it's it's a good it's a good question Rosemary asked have there been any DNA test Bones from the graves I'm mat one of the skeletons on the Ramsgate relief Road uh so the skeletons are a very good question um it was my understanding and I believe the land owner's understanding that most of the skeletons or all the skeletons had been reburied during the excavation or post the excavation however very recently I found out that that's not entirely the case and there is actually a skeleton up in Canterbury Christ Church University but I don't know from which phase of the excavation it's coming from uh there's not very much notes and it's something that I'm trying to inquire about and uh there was no DNA studies done at the time it wasn't um you know within the the technological feasibility at the time um we do have some human remains in one of our parts of our collection from this site um which we are potentially going to look at getting some DNA done again with time and funding and opportunities if they become available um so yeah it's it's not been done to my knowledge and certainly we have no record of any DNA being done um on since the colle definitely since the collection came into our possession between 2010 and 2022 I don't know whether any any has been done but it's not been um included in our paperwork thank you um I see that Joe has just commented here uh for jws says it's not overs spilled and hasn't shrunk in the cells either on the glass versus enamel point there is a brooch from Byron's a bit fancier with Garnet alternating enamel and sorry it just moved on me and the enamel has shrunk can be hard though enamel is an Allied vitous material to Glass ah thank you very much Jo that makes much more sense I hope that helps I think that is all of the questions we have here Andy so um I want say thank you so much for the talk it was amazing uh really interesting if anyone has any more questions for Andy then drop him an email U on his Kent archaeological societ email address which is andy. Kent archaeology.org brilliant thank you everybody for attending tonight I really appreciate it and thank you again Andy for your insights on this thank you very much Craig as I mentioned earlier our talks calendar is filling rapidly so please keep your eyes open for upcoming talks um we have coming up Thursday day the 24th of October diving with a purpose the SS TR Thompson project by Tad tabara this is an incredible story of the discovery of shipwreck the SST Thompson diving and recording the historic Steemer and of the incredible connections that followed on Thursday the 14th of November 2024 to coincide with the release of Gladiator 2 we have Dr Simon Elliot telling us all things Septimus everus on Thursday the 5th of December we have the rescheduled Randall Manor revealed Community archaeology excavations in sha Woods Country Park by Andrew Mayfield Thursday the 23rd of January we have Dr Reb Ellis hacken and she'll be talking to us about animals and humans in the late Iron Age art of England and Wales with a special reference to Kent on the 21st of February we've got David brownr bringing us a presentation of technical AIDS in archaeology with a spec special focus on aerial and satellite imagery Thursday the 20th of March Janice Thornton will be talking about cheffy munition esses women in sheerness dockyard in World War I and Thursday the 17th of April Dr Martin Watts will deliver his talk richb the secret port and I'm sure there will be more um as they fly in so please keep your eyes on the website for more details of the tour and a wider range of uh upcoming Kemp based events so that is all for me thank you again everybody um if you enjoyed it uh if you like what we're doing please think about becoming a member and we will continue to bring these to your living room thanks a lot have a lovely evening thanks Andy and I'll see you all later good night