Bronze Age hoard from St. Michael’s Mount now on display

St Michael's Mount. Image: midlander1231, Flickr

A Bronze Age hoard uncovered by a gardener on St Michael’s Mount off the coast of Cornwall, southwest England in 2009, is now on public display in the island’s castle. The hoard contains 49 objects in total, 45 of which were initially excavated and the remaining five were found in a subsequent inspection of the surface soil.

Bronze Worker. Image: Hans Splinter, Flickr. Inset images: Buckle, axe and ingot which formed part of the hoard.

Found by Mr. Darren Little during the clearance of bracken on the north-west slope of St. Michael’s Mount tucked under a rock in a cavity, the objects included five socketed axe heads, four blade fragments, a probable hogs-back knife, a unique buckle/horse fitting/scabbard decoration, a chape, a hilt terminal, 10 copper alloy fragments and 24 ingot fragments.

The objects, found on land owned by the National Trust, were cleaned, conserved, photographed, X-rayed and measured at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter by Andrew Hughes and K. Williams.

The entire assemblage has been verified as being from the transitional Late Bronze Age – around 2800 years old.

Why this particular hoard was deposited in the rock cavity remains unknown. Archaeologists have speculated that the objects may have belonged to a smith who had hidden them away for later use – a so called ‘founders hoard’.







Past Horizons