Mildenhall: memories of mystery and misgivings.

Mildenhall: memories of mystery and misgivings. Half a century on, the principals in the Mildenhall affair aredeceased. Paul Ashbee, senior prehistorian of East Anglia East Anglia(ăng`glēə), kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, comprising the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. It was settled in the late 5th cent. by so-called Angles from northern Germany and Scandinavia. , has no directevidence, but material recollections from near to the time. His account,drawing on those memories, notices aspects different to those which arestressed by Richard Hobbs (above), a researcher of a younger generationlooking at the written record.Sutton Hoo's excavation and the emergence of the Mildenhallsilver bracketed the 1939-45 war and were the two major events of SirThomas Kendrick's career at the British Museum British Museum,the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. (Bruce-Mitford 1992:462). Despite disorganization disorganization/dis��or��gan��iza��tion/ (-or?gan-i-za��shun) the process of destruction of any organic tissue; any profound change in the tissues of an organ or structure which causes the loss of most or all of its proper characters. and war damage, the museum placed much ofthe Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo(sŭt`ən h), archaeological site near Woodbridge, East Suffolk, E England, containing 11 barrows. Excavations here in 1938–39 revealed remains of a Saxon ship (c. material and the Mildenhall silver on display withadmirable promptitude; the latter on 20 July 1946. A serviceablehandbook by John Brailsford, at that time Assistant Keeper of Britishand Mediaeval me��di��ae��val?adj.Variant of medieval.mediaevalAdjectivesame as medievalAdj. 1. Antiquities, appeared in 1947. In it he said that theassemblage had been 'accidentally discovered some four yearspreviously by Mr S. Ford and Mr G. Butcher while ploughing afield'. This statement was immediately puzzling, as none of thepieces, least of all the Oceanus dish (Strong & Brown 1976: colourplate 1), showed any signs of having been struck by a ploughshare.Contrary to popular belief, ploughing does not immediately bring thingsto the surface and they are invariably in��var��i��a��ble?adj.Not changing or subject to change; constant.in��vari��a��bil scored and broken, oftenconsiderably. A good example is the broken Byzantine bronze bucketremnant harrowed up at Bromeswell, near Sutton Hoo, in 1986 (Mango etal. 1989). There would also have been tarnish tarnish,n 1. surface discoloration or loss of luster by metals. Under oral conditions, it often results from hard and soft deposits.2. a chemical process by which a metal surface is discolored or its luster destroyed. , corrosion and pittingfrom soil acids. It was thought that.even Dr Plenderleith'slaboratory, a world leader, would have had difficulties had such damageobtained.Matching misgivings about Mildenhall were entertained by thoseattending Sir Mortimer Wheeler's excavation school at Verulamium in1949 (Cotton & Wheeler 1953). Some, particularly ex-service people,were openly sceptical about the silver's ploughing-up as well asthe implications of the fruitless excavation. After the Treasure Trove TREASURE TROVE. Found treasure. 2. This name is given to such money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion, which having been hidden or concealed in the earth or other private place, so long that its owner is unknown, has been discovered by accident. inquest at Mildenhall (1 July 1946) an excavation was carried out at theplace indicated by Ford as the find spot. Under the aegis of T.C.Lethbridge (Cambridge Antiquarian Society The Cambridge Antiquarian Society is a society dedicated to study and preservation of the archaeology, history, and architecture of Cambridgeshire, England.The society was founded in 1840. and Crown witness at theinquest), Major Gordon Fowler (Fenland Research Committee) and C.W.Phillips (Selwyn College Selwyn College may refer to the following:In England Selwyn College, Cambridge, England In New Zealand Selwyn College, Auckland Selwyn College, Otago , and later Archaeology Officer of the OrdnanceSurvey Ordnance SurveyNounthe British government organization that produces detailed maps of Britain and IrelandNoun 1. Ordnance Survey - the official cartography agency of the British government ), a considerable area was stripped to the sub-soil. They foundneither pits nor pieces, indeed, nothing to show that the silver hadever been in or beneath the ploughsoil, or a pit, at that particularplace. There had also been some muddled changes of story at theMildenhall inquest regarding the discovery. A further consideration,back in the 1940s, was that, in style and splendour, the silverobviously originated in the Mediterranean region, and was out of keepingwith provincial Roman Britain Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia. . It was said that the 34 pieces had beenfound in 1942, or 1943, and had subsequently been kept in a farmhouse,the great Oceanus dish on a sideboard. Lack of the damage which wouldhave been unavoidable had the assemblage been 'ploughed up'called the circumstances into question, as did the absence of a crediblecontext, and cast considerable doubt upon them. War loot, a collectionbrought back from the Mediterranean theatre to this country was invoked,while the nature of large-scale black-market transactions was endlesslyspeculated upon.C.W. Phillips (1987: 87), who took part in the fruitless, misledexcavation, was forthright about Mildenhall in his memoirs. He stressedthe clouded, tortuous circumstances of the silver's emergence,saying that Sidney Ford received a reward which was not the sum that hewould have had were his story thought true. His observations are, insubstance, largely the misgivings current in 1949 about the trade inantiquities around airfields; with the story that a doctor, presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. Dr H.A. Fawcett, had called without warning upon Ford and had seen thesilver, an incident which may have precipitated its emergence and thetreasure trove process. He also thought that the silver might have beenfound during military activity in North Africa, brought back in anaircraft and hidden just by the airfield's perimeter.Archaeological concern regarding the Mildenhall silver's lack ofa precise context continued. Excavations at Mawgan Porth in Cornwall(Bruce-Mitford 1956) from 1956 onwards, led to lasting friendship withRupert Bruce-Mitford and, ultimately, to our work at Sutton Hoo. MawganPorth, like Verulamium, attracted a number of people whose interestswere archaeology and allied disciplines. Many had seen the spectacularsilver, displayed by the British Museum, but were puzzled that it hadapparently been 'ploughed up'. Because Bruce-Mitford was sovery much of the British Museum he was asked, at various relaxed times,about the Mildenhall silver and its details. As always, courteous andconsiderate, he revealed his misgivings regarding the silver's'discovery'. Later, ! was privileged to be able to discuss theaura of doubt surrounding this spectacular collection. It was inBruce-Mitford's mind that it had possibly been brought into thiscountry from North Africa or even Italy and that the claim that it hadbeen 'ploughed up' was a convenient fiction, concocted toexplain its possession. Because of the rumoured involvement ofAmericans, this was a matter that could be neither pursued norpublicized in the immediate post-war period. In later years JohnBrailsford, on a Prehistoric Society occasion, related to me a similarscepticism regarding the Mildenhall story.It is difficult, because of the years between, to envisage SidneyFord, the leading man in the drama. He ran a small, but flourishing,agricultural engineering and contract ploughing firm and had a livelyinterest in antiquities, regarding which he was knowledgeable, and maysometimes have sold such things as souvenirs. Gordon Butcher, who had atractor, sometimes carried out work for Ford and is said to have beendriving when the silver was 'ploughed up'. Ford, it isclaimed, would not, living remotely at the edge of the Fens, have knownanything of the law of treasure trove, which could account for the arrayof silver on his sideboard. This is surprising, as only a few yearspreviously, there had been the excavation of the regal burial at SuttonHoo, which, particularly the dramatic treasure trove inquest, had beenreported in considerable detail in both national and local newspapers(Bruce-Mitford et al. 1976: 718-31). At the Mildenhall inquest (1 July1946), conflicting evidence was given by the principals involved;indeed, much of it has been considered as prevarication PREVARICATION. Praevaricatio, civil law. The acting with unfaithfulness and want of probity. The term is applied principally to the act of concealing a crime. Dig. 47, 15, 6. as well asequivocation. Phillips (1987: 84), ever forthright, has commented upontheir lack of truth. Ford, it appears, was given only a nominal award,not the monies that would have been paid to him had his evidence beenconstant. The subsequent excavation showed that it was inconceivablethat such large objects could have remained in the field afterploughing, unless they had been in a pit, and that the indication of theplace of discovery was palpably untrue.Mildenhall's airfield, in the occupancy of the RAF as well asCanadian and New Zealand New Zealand(zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. squadrons during the war years, has been linkedwith the Mediterranean origins of the silver. Incidental usages by theUSAF cannot be established, although they were regular after late 1945.The airfield was temporarily closed on 7 November 1942, for some fivemonths, for concrete runway construction. There would have been a vastearth-moving phase so it is not impossible that the silver was met withand extracted, undamaged, from an appropriate context and thereafterconcealed. Anglo-American forces invaded North Africa in November 1942and Italy in September 1943. Had a great silver assemblage been acquiredby some means which would not stand too close an enquiry, and neededtransport and the means of getting it to a place of safety secretly, anaircraft returning to England would have been ideal for the task.Whoever was involved never returned for his acquisitions, perhapsbecause of the misfortunes of war.Mildenhall's mutabilities may never be resolved; they fill aPandora's Box, with little hope at the bottom. The post-inquestexcavations by Messrs Lethbridge, Fowler and Phillips show that thesilver was not ploughed up at the place indicated by Ford as thefind-spot, while its lack of damage remains puzzling. In 1946, Thearchaeology of the Cambridge region (1923) by Sir Cyril Fox, as hebecame, was the only book to treat the region that would have beenreadily available. In it (p. 216) he wrote, 'finds of silver arerarely met with, but pewter vessels (cups and platters) have been found,singly or in hoards, in several places; at Lakenheath and Icklingham,and in the fens at Sutton, Isleham, Stretham Mere, and West Row,Mildenhall'. Thus it can be contended that Ford's persistentclaim that he thought the objects to be of pewter, not to mention theselection of alleged discovery site, could have come from this passage.All in all, the account of the discovery is riddled with inconsistenciesand when examined in detail it emerges as patently spurious. Even theinquest jury was not entirely convinced, as is shown by its reducedaward to Ford. Down the years, fundamental doubt regarding theMildenhall story, 'found while ploughing', remained with theBritish Museum's principals who had handled the 34 almost undamagedsilver objects.Although it was said that imported silverware such as we have fromMildenhall could never have been found in Britain, comparable objectswere not unknown even then (Smith 1922: passim PASSIM - A simulation language based on Pascal.["PASSIM: A Discrete-Event Simulation Package for Pascal", D.H Uyeno et al, Simulation 35(6):183-190 (Dec 1980)]. ). A distant workmanshipis accepted but the nature of its precise origins is now beyond us. Ashas for so long been rumoured, it may have been brought to his countryclandestinely in the 1940s. On the other hand, the prosaic possibilityof a concealed Suffolk or Cambridgeshire discovery remains. Meanwhile,the material has, despite its doubtful antecedents, enteredarchaeological literature (e.g. Hunter Blair 1963: 156), althoughuneasily (Salway 1981: 607), where it has been seen as part of thechattels of the later Roman Christian general Lupicinus (Painter 1977:22-3; Thomas 1981: 103). It is, nonetheless, regrettable that the sourceof this remarkable silver assemblage is still, after 50 years, a case ofignotum per ignatius.ReferencesBRAILSFORD, J.W. 1947. The Mildenhall treasure. London: BritishMuseum.BRUCE-MITFORD, R.L.S. 1956. A Dark-Age settlement at Mawgan Porth,Cornwall, in R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford (ed.), Recent archaeologicalexcavations in Britain: 167-96. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.1976. The Sutton Hoo ship-burial I. London: British Museum.1992. Thomas Downing Kendrick, 1895-1979, Proceedings of the BritishAcademy 76: 445-71.CLARK, J.G.D. 1989. Prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. 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