2 - Archaeological Evidence for Goldsmiths and their Tools

Summary

NOT all archaeological evidence of fine metalworking provides direct evidence of manufacturing areas or practices. Some of the best archaeological evidence concerns processes which must necessarily take place before manufacturing can begin: for example the refining of precious metals. Equally, tools found in graves are an important indication of metalworking as an occupation at some level within a community, at some time preceding deposition, and there are cases (though only one certain example in pre-Conquest England), when it is reasonable to identify the deceased not only as a smith but as a fine metalworker, on the evidence of the grave goods. When tools, remains of hearths, and utensils such as crucibles come together, they are among the most important evidence we have. This is not only for what techniques were practised: the sites themselves, when datable, may provide evidence for the social milieu in which goldsmiths worked at different periods.

EVIDENCE OF WORKSHOPS

For the early Anglo-Saxon period, from the fifth until the early eighth century, much of the evidence for metalworkers and their tools does in fact come from graves, and so will be discussed later in the present chapter. There is evidence of metalworking at village sites, for example Mucking in Essex and West Stow in Suffolk. The jeweller’s rouge from Canterbury, which was stuck to the edge of a fifth-century Visigothic gold coin (see p. 130), and a seventh-century die from Rochester, Kent (pp. 110, 113-14) may be early evidence for goldsmiths in proto-urban centres, but it is not impossible that the Canterbury evidence indicates a monastic or royal base. From the early eighth century to the end of the third quarter of the ninth century, metalworking remains are found on a variety of sites. Some of these are clearly classified as monastic, for example Jarrow/Monkwear- mouth, Hartlepool, and Whithorn, although the last has also been identified as a wic. Others were proto- or early towns, including those identified as wics, for example Hamwic (Southampton) and Anglian York. There were also rural sites, some possibly settlements and others estates, such as Wharram Percy in Yorkshire, Flixborough in Lincolnshire, and Brandon in Suffolk. It is not always clear whether those identified as estates were monastic or secular, and the actual working area has not been found in all of them, but all provide some useful evidence.