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A complete Iron Age 'ribbed terret' in extremely good condition. It is copper-alloy and the hoop has been cast in one with the bar, it is oval in shape and measures 49mm in length and 38mm in width externally and 29mm in length and 24mm in width internally. The hoop has ten lip mouldings along it, these mouldings are largest and more deeply moulded at either side of the bar. The bar itself is rectangular in cross-section and down-curved. There are five terrets of a similar style, with between 8 to 11 lip mouldings round their circumference, from Kirkburn, east Yorkshire, they vary in size and two of the five have roughly the same sized hoop as this example, although their lip mouldings are larger. The examples from Kirkburn have iron strap-bars, rather than cast in one copper-alloy, these are either straight or down-curved. Further examples of similar terrets which are smaller, have been found at King's and Lady's Barrows at Arras, the type is also known from southern England where it has a copper-alloy strap bar, as does this example (Stead 1991, 47-48, Fig 40). JD Hill, of the British Museum, has confirmed the identification of this 'ribbed terret' and informed us that new unpublished work by Natasha Hutcheson in Norfolk has proposed a chronology for terrets in East Anglia. This work suggests that the ribbed terrets, such as this example, probably date between 300 - 100 BC. The more elaborate flanged terrets with enamel decoration and other elaboarate terrets start some time in the 1st Century BC and run on through the 1st Century AD till well after the Roman Conquest. Interestingly, the research has also shown that there appear to be quite a few early terrets in Suffolk but few late terrets. In contrast, Norfolk has very few early terrets and many late types (JD Hill pers. comm).

• Stead, I M, 1991. Iron Age Cemeteries in East Yorkshire : English Heritage Archaeological Report 22.

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Created: Monday 10th March 2003
Updated: Thursday 24th February 2011