I Dig Sheffield | Digging Around Sheffield and the Peaks

Dimensions : Length 0.7cm, width 0.5cm.

Site name : Stanton Moor
Site type : Burial site

Time period : Bronze Age
Material : Faience
Object type : Grave goods; Personal item; Jewellery
Museum number : 1979.1090

The cairn where this bead was found was numbered T56 by the excavators. It has not been published. The excavators, J. P. and J. C. Heathcote, recorded some details about the bead. It was a surface find in a rabbit hole in the centre of the cairn.

The Heathcotes describe the cairn as a disc barrow. This is because of the circular bank, about 80m in diameter, which surrounded it. This resembles disc barrows which have been identified in southern England. However, we now know that the site is a ring cairn. Several others are known on the moor.

There are no records of the excavation itself. The presence of flints and some cremated bone from the cairn in Heathcote's collection shows that an excavation did take place. We do not know if these finds were made at the same time as the bead.

Faience is most famously associated with Egypt, where it was widely used. A number of examples of faience beads have been found from the British Bronze Age. These were almost certainly made in this country and not imported from the Mediterranean.

Find out more...

Glossary:
Barrow
Bronze Age
Cairn
Excavation
Excavator
Faience
J. P. and J. C. Heathcote

Related objects
Segmented bead from Stanton Moor
Bead from Cow Low
Bead from Doll Tor
Ring from Stanton Moor

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