Exhibition of Melsonby hoard in York challenges ideas about life in northern Britain 2,000 years ago
Iron age objects that tell a dramatic story of female power and that dispel the myth that northern Britain was a left-behind backwater have gone on display for the first time.
The objects exhibited in York are from the Melsonby hoard, the largest trove of iron age metalwork ever found in the UK, which experts say could alter our understanding of life in Britain 2,000 years ago.
The hoard, which comprises more than 800 items, was almost certainly associated with a tribe called the Brigantes, who controlled most of what is now northern England and whose most famous leader was Queen Cartimandua.
There are fragments of chariots, bridle bits, weapons, a cauldron, a mysterious mirror and much more – all of them deliberately dismantled and burned before they were buried. It was a “crazy amount of effort and work”, said Yorkshire Museum’s senior curator, Glynn Davis.
