This little object (SUR-D01AF2), with its evocative human face with staring eyes and slicked-back hair, is a copper alloy handle attachment mount, probably from a stave-built bucket. It dates to the later Iron Age (1st century BC to the 1st century AD) and is one of a relatively small number of representations of the human form from the period – and one of only a handful of anthropomorphic examples of this particular type of object that are known. Found by a metal detectorist near the present day course of the river Wey in Wisley, Surrey, and recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme it is a rare and important discovery.
The mount is hollow and cast in the form of a male head, 17.2mm in width, with a triangular nose, simple slash-line mouth and large teardrop shaped eyes delineated with deeply incised lines which taper towards the back of the head. The pupils are two holes which probably originally held inlays of coral or other material. The top of the head has a hairdo indicated by swept-back lines and a moulded line around the brow. The rear of the head is pierced to take the axis lug from a handle, with the lower edge at the neck ending in a curved edge to fit over the rim of a vessel. The chest comprises an oval plate, with a rivet at the centre of a slightly raised circular decoration and indications of a neck decoration of some kind. This rivet likely fixed a now lost decorative element to the front of the mount.
The majority of Late Iron Age figurative bucket mounts depict bovines, and where they do appear in human form, they depict the figure wearing a horned helmet or with horns protruding from the head. This example from Surrey differs markedly as there are no bovine features present. It is however, very similar in form to another example from north east Hampshire (BERK-1CEE21) as well as being comparable to a few other finds recorded by the PAS such as ESS-BD8454 from Essex, PUBLIC-72DACF from Cambridgeshire and BERK-783763 from Oxfordshire. Other published parallels are known from Welwyn in Hertfordshire, Aylesford and Alkham in Kent, Thealby in Lincolnshire and Ribchester in Lancashire (Powell 1966, 225; James & Rigby 1997, fig.19; Jope 2000, pl. 182i; MacGregor 1976, ref. 316).
The proximity of the find to a watercourse raises the possibility of it representing some sort of “votive” waterside deposition, perhaps being deposited inside a paleochannel which was a free-flowing watercourse in the Iron Age. This type of watery deposition is a well attested social phenomenon of the period in the wider Thames Valley area, which has led to weapons, shields and a range of other high status objects being consigned to watercourses in the Iron Age, only to be recovered by activities such as dredging in modern times. As no comparable finds were reported from the vicinity in this case, it is possible that the original bucket has become broken up with its components dispersed by fluvial action along the watercourse. It is also possible that the mount was intentionally detached and deposited in isolation, perhaps with the intense face being intended as a depiction of a deity. Whatever the reason, its recovery is a glimpse into a vibrant and astonishing culture which had a very different world view to our own.
References:
James, S. & Rigby, V. 1997. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age, London: British Museum Press
Jope, E. M. 2000. Early Celtic Art in the British Isles, Oxford University Press
MacGregor, M. 1976. Early Celtic Art in North Britain, Leicester University Press
Powell, T. G. E. 1966. Prehistoric Art, London: Thames & Hudson
