Norfolk Heritage Explorer

Hands up  if you know what a dragon looks like. So that’s everyone, then. How about a unicorn? All of you again. 

But how about an amphisbaena? 

Ah, thought not. 

Back in medieval times, though, it would have been a very different story. Mythical animals were everywhere, from stone carvings to illuminated manuscripts. If you considered yourself an educated person, you would have known exactly what their names were and what they looked like. 

A find by a detectorist north of King’s Lynn has opened up a window on one of the most obscure of mythical creatures (to our eyes, at least). The finder discovered this buckle plate – dating from circa AD 1250-1425 - with a fascinating subject depicted on it. Similar buckles often turn up with the decorative plate broken, so it’s easy to interpret this beast as a snake or a crocodile, say. But thanks to the plate being intact, we tell what it really is: an amphisbaena, a lizard-like creature with a head at each end of its body. 

NMS-AFFCBD

Ancient Greek and Roman writers were convinced that the creature existed. The most influential was Pliny the Elder, most famous these days for perishing in the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. But for 1500 years or more, his fame was down to his mammoth encyclopaedia Naturalis Historia (Natural History). In Chapter 25 ‘Different kinds of serpents’ he writes:  

”The amphisbæna has two heads, that is to say, it has a second one at the tail, as though one mouth were too little for the discharge of all its venom” (translation by John Bostock and Henry T. Riley). 

And for centuries afterwards, people believed him. It wasn’t until the 17th century that this particular tale was debunked– along with many others – by the Norwich scholar and writer Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) better known as ‘Vulgar Errors’. After setting out his arguments, he concludes in his typically elegant way:  

“We must crave leave to doubt of this double-headed Serpent until we have the advantage to behold [it].”

Almost 400 years later, we’re still waiting 

Statue of polymath Sir Thomas Browne statue in Norwich: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Thomas_Browne_statue,_Norwich#/media/File:Thomas_Browne_statue.jpg/2

Take a closer look at the buckle plate by visiting its Portable Antiquities Scheme record.

There is a wonderful array of archaeological finds made by the public in Norfolk.  In general, because of the sheer volume involved we are only able to record artefacts that are more than a nominal 300 years old.  However, if an object has additional merit, for example through its cultural history then we will often try to make an exception.

This artefact unearthed recently in a field near Dereham is one such example. It’s a copper alloy token struck in 1788 to commemorate the jubilee of the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688-1699 when James II was removed from the throne in favour of the Dutch William and Mary. 

This was a pivotal time in British history with politics and religion dividing the kingdom into civil unrest.  The Dutch invasion force of England assembled by William was four times the size of the Spanish Armada of 1588 and landed in Torbay, Devon on 5^th November 1688.  Apart from a skirmish near Reading the invasion was largely uncontested with James’s army and supporters defecting in the support of William, including his daughter Anne.

Our chosen find this month is a middle to late Saxon copper-alloy bow brooch. It was found recently on farmland in Breckland and is notable because of its size, richly cast decoration, and excellent level of preservation. It never ceases to amaze that an object can spend well over a 1000 years in the ground, be subjected to the vagaries of the weather, chemical fertilizers and ploughing and still survive in relatively good condition. Not so for the iron spring and pin mechanism though, as the rusty concretion on the back bears witness to the original location. Iron corrodes much more readily than copper alloy in the ground. 

The date of the brooch is circa AD 800-910 and it is of a brooch form now described as Ansate. The term Ansate means ‘handle-shaped’ and it is clear how the brooch style got it's name.  The adjacent distribution map uses national data from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) database and illustrates that the type was particularly popular in Anglo Saxon East Anglia. Full details of the brooch can be found at https://finds.org.uk/database  using the reference NMS-EB5046 in the search field.

Found in Broadland our Find of the Month this month is a rather large and hefty 13^th-14^th century sword pommel. Pommel styles are many and varied and this type goes under the unsurprising name of a Wheel pommel. What makes this particular pommel stand out is the decoration and the rather unusual incised inscription which ‘reads’ along the following lines…

+ * + B S PCA EIS [small cross, circle with eight radiating rays, cross potent, retrograde B, retrograde S, P, C, inverted A with broken cross bar, E, I, retrograde S]. The inscription is indecipherable to modern interpretation, but bearing in mind that by far the majority of the population in the medieval period was illiterate, it may just be meaningless. The sword Pommel has a number of functions. Firstly, it prevents the hand slipping off the handle and aids a firm grip. Secondly it provides a counterweight to the heavy blade, meaning that the point of balance is shifted just forward of the hilt making the weapon more balanced and easier to handle fluidly. Indeed, to help facilitate this, the inside of the pommel is part-filled with lead.  Finally, Pommels can be used as a weapon in their own right and used to strike the opponent, particularly around the head.  Interestingly, this latter usage is where our modern term pummelling is derived from. 

Full details of this find can be seen at https://finds.org.uk/database using the reference NMS-567099 to search against.