Detectorists find Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard that may have been part of a 'ritual killing'

Metal detectorists in England have unearthed a spectacular collection of Anglo-Saxon gold-and-garnet pendants that may have ended up in the ground after being ritually "killed" 1,400 years ago.

Two detectorists found the collection of four gold pendants and one piece of a gold brooch on the slope of a hill in the village of Donington on Bain, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of London, in the spring of 2023. The detectorists reported their find under the U.K.'s Portable Antiquities Scheme, and archaeologist Lisa Brundle, the finds liaison officer for Lincolnshire county, studied the extraordinary jewels.

Brundle revealed her findings in a study published Nov. 24 in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology and wrote that "the pendants, as a cohesive necklace set, are unusual."

While gold-and-garnet pendants were quite common accessories for high-status women in seventh-century England, Brundle wrote, archaeologists typically find them in graves, not in a group on the side of a hill. The pendants also showed signs of wear, damage and modifications, meaning they may have been antiques — at least 60 years old — by the time they were buried.

No other artifacts or human bones were found with the Donington pendants, which suggests that someone may have purposefully collected the accessories and then buried them for safekeeping or in a ritual act, Brundle wrote.

The heaviest artifact in the collection is a D-shaped pendant weighing around 0.2 ounces (6.7 grams). The large garnet is inset into a scallop-shaped gold cell at the bottom of the pendant. "The scallop shape itself is symbolically important," Brundle wrote, "often associated with fertility and potentially bearing Christian connotations."

The other four accessories were all circular with star and beaded motifs. Three of them were pendants, but one was the dome-shaped portion of a brooch that had been extracted for reuse. Reusing the central dome from a brooch is particularly noteworthy, Brundle wrote, because only a dozen or so examples of this exist.

The Donington group of jewels is unlikely to have been a necklace set from an Anglo-Saxon woman's grave, Brundle noted, because no beads or spacers were found to suggest they had all been strung together. To try and unravel the mystery, Brundle instead sought alternate explanations for why these five items were found in a group.

"One possibility is that the assemblage derives from a smith's hoard," Brundle wrote.

During the seventh century, garnet supplies were dwindling, and an itinerant goldsmith may have collected some antique jewels to modify into new accessories. How the smith collected them is up for debate, though, as grave-robbers are known to have targeted high-status women's graves to remove their prized jewels, Brundle wrote in the study.

Removing the pendants from circulation can also be seen as a kind of "ritual killing," which transformed powerful, antique symbols of elite status into new items no longer connected to those individuals, Brundle noted.

But it is also possible that one or more women simply gathered their own jewelry and hid it away.

"One interpretation is that the assemblage represents the treasured possessions of kin or social groups, deliberately concealed during periods of instability or transition," Brundle wrote.

In the late sixth and seventh centuries, the adoption of Christianity changed the social and political context of England, which was split into kingdoms. Lincolnshire was divided into three regions, and the jewelry hoard was found in one of them: Lindsey. While Lindsey was an independent kingdom, it came under the rule of the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia at different times during this period, which may have led to instability.

Further archaeological work in the Donington area "may clarify the nature of the site and its potential significance," Brundle wrote, potentially revealing more about the shifting social and political landscape in seventh-century England.

The collection was purchased by the Lincoln Museum in 2025.

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