Broads hoard yields rare Bronze Age button

15 hours ago

Katy Prickett

The copper-alloy button has a diameter of 2.4cm (about an inch) and an unusual central conical boss, expert Helen Geake said

Andrew Williams/Norfolk County Council Three views of a late Bronze Age round button. The first image on the left shows its front face, which has a large conical central boss within a broad, deep concave depression, surrounded by a thick convex rim that slopes down to the edge. The middle image shows it on its side revealing its attachment loop. The third image on the right shows its reverse with the attachment loop in the middle. — The copper-alloy button has a diameter of 2.4cm (about an inch) and an unusual central conical boss, expert Helen Geake said

A late Bronze Age button has been discovered with a hoard of axe heads in a find that is exciting experts.

While buttons are taken for granted today, examples of their use 3,000 years ago were described as "very, very rare" by archaeologist Dr Helen Geake.

The discovery was made by a metal detectorist in 2023 near Barton Turf, on the northern edge of the Norfolk Broads. It has been declared treasure by a coroner.

Bronze Age small finds specialist Dr Ed Caswell said: "We can't really imagine a world without buttons, but this is only the third Bronze Age one to be found in Norfolk."

Geake said only 19 Bronze Age buttons have ever been recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database since it was set up

A head shot of Helen Geake smiling broadly. She has light brown bobbed hair in a long fringe brushed to her right. She is wearing a black top which can just be glimpsed. — Geake said only 19 Bronze Age buttons have ever been recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database since it was set up

The person who found the button, which dates to between 1000BC and 700BC, reported it to Geake, who is Norfolk's finds liaison officer.

He discovered it with an axe head, having found another one at the same site two years earlier. It is believed that the three items were put in the ground at the same time.

Geake added the details to the Portable Antiquities Scheme database, run by the British Museum.

She said: "The button is really unusual; there are only 19 on the database.

"But the problem with the Bronze Age - and archaeology in general - is it's so long ago, it's like another country, and we don't know what these things were used for.

"If you find them in graves, you might guess they are off clothes, but if not, then we aren't able to tell if they could be from a horse harness, for example."

Caswell, who is Oxfordshire's finds liaison officer, said there had been a couple of button finds in Bronze Age burials in northwest Europe.

"This type of button is only found in the late Bronze Age, and to find it with axe heads, when they are all perfectly usable, does suggest it was intentionally deposited in the ground."

Experts are still debating whether people did that to recycle the objects for use later, or because there was some sort of ritual behind it.

"The exciting thing is when we see it, we call it a button, but in UK context we have never found it showing how it was attached," Caswell added.

"It does give us a hint about how people want to decorate themselves, but buttons do seem to go out of fashion from the Iron Age onwards (from about 750BC), replaced by brooches."

Norwich Castle Museum hopes to acquire the button.

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