Massive Iron Age hoards discovered in England may be from funeral of powerful Celtic queen

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Massive Iron Age hoards discovered in England may be from funeral of powerful Celtic queen

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Two huge hoards of burnt metal Iron Age weapons, vessels and chariots discovered in northern England may have been part of a royal funeral, perhaps of a queen, according to archaeologists.

A metal detector found the treasures in 2021 near the village of Melsonby in Yorkshire and alerted archaeologists. Excavators discovered two separate deposits with a total of more than 950 artifacts, including iron “tires” for wooden wheels, a cauldron, an ornate wine bowl and ceremonial spearheads.

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“It is clear that Melsonby was not a funeral [because] we have no proof of the existence of a body”, co-author of the study Tom Moorearchaeologist at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, told Live Science in an email. “Our question is therefore: why deposit this material?

Moore and his colleagues believe that the size of the Melsonby treasures and the large number of expensive objects indicate that they were part of an elite burial organized by the Brigantes, a powerful tribe of Iron Age Britons consisting mainly of Celtic origin.

The Brigantes ruled the nearby royal site of Stanwick, a few hundred yards from where the treasures were discovered. At this time, Stanwick was a fortified village which the Romans called a “oppidum” ; they were usually built by the Celts on hilltops or in other defensive areas.

Burned objects

Moore said burning or destroying objects was a key practice in many prehistoric funerals.

“Much of the material…was burned at high temperatures, enough to melt the copper alloy and silver,” he said. “By this time, cremation was becoming a popular funeral rite among the elites of some parts of Britain.” No signs of burials were found nearby, but the remains could have been buried elsewhere.

However, the exact reason for the burials of these treasures may never be known. “There are several possibilities for this event,” Moore said, “but the funeral of an important leader seems to be one of the most likely.”

The researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine that the artifacts originated in the first century BC, while their style and decorations, including corals from the Mediterranean Sea, indicate that Stanwick’s elites had connections to the European continent.

Two images labeled a and b next to each other show earth-covered, teal-colored artifacts laying in the middle of a dig site.

Other items from the larger of the two hoards include this bronze vessel decorated with faces, which would have been a bowl for mixing wine and water. (Image credit: Alexander Jansen/University of Durham)

The Brigantes were the allies of the Romans after their conquest of a large part of Britain after 43 AD. Roman sources after AD 69 indicate that the Brigantes were then ruled by a queen named Cartimandua, a “client ruler” and ally.

But researchers believe the treasures date back generations before that and may have been used in the funeral of one of Cartimandua’s royal ancestors. (Royal power among the Brigantes appears to have been passed down from mother to daughter, so it is likely that some of Cartimandua’s ancestors were also queens regnant.)

Four-wheel carts

A key discovery was that the Melsonby hoards contained several strange U-shaped iron brackets, which have been found in mainland Europe but not in Britain. The supports have now been identified as parts of four-wheeled carts, which Iron Age Britons used alongside their two-wheeled chariots, according to the study authors. This indicates that the British had connections with other Celtic groups on the European continent.

A close-up of two brown U-shaped brackets on a black surface with a mm ruler bar in the lower right corner

The Melsonby hoards contained several U-shaped iron brackets, which researchers believe were parts of four-wheeled carts. (Image credit: Alexander Jansen/University of Durham)

“The fact that we have items that can only be attributed to such vehicles… is a first for Britain,” Moore said. “Why we’ve never found them before is a mystery.”

Melanie Gillesarchaeologist at the University of Manchester who was not involved in Melsonby’s study but is currently excavating a float funeral around the same time in Wales, said the Wales Chariot and the artifacts from the Melsonby Treasures have several things in common. On the one hand, “They share the same style of Celtic art,” Giles said.

In both cases, the Celtic motifs appeared to have been exaggerated, which could be a sign of Celtic opposition to Roman expansion on the European continent, Giles proposed. “Some people think it’s some kind of resistance to the Romans,” she said. “These are people celebrating their Celtic art and being a little more ‘in your face’ about it.”

Adams, S., Armstrong, J., Bayliss, A., Moore, T. and Williams, E. (2026). Vehicles of Change: two exceptional repositories of destroyed chariots or wagons from Late Iron Age Britain. Antiquity1–21. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2026.10311