Golds, garnets and guesswork: understanding the Harpole treasure and the Desborough necklace

By Laura Malpas

It has been exciting reading the news and learning that yet another fabulous archaeological discovery has been made in our ancient county. We have known about the stunning Desborough necklace, an Anglo-Saxon gold and garnet treasure discovered nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, but now we are learning more about another very similar discovery made less than a year ago in Harpole, less than twenty miles from Desborough.

The Desborough Necklace

Both fine necklaces are constructed with finely worked gold and garnet pendants and feature a central cross. And interestingly, they are both associated with the burial of a woman, clearly of high status and apparently Christian. Why might these women have been buried with such rich grave goods, and what do they tell us about Anglo-Saxon life in the 7th Century AD?

English history following the departure of Rome in 410 AD and before the Norman Conquest in 1066 has previously been regarded as the ‘Dark Ages’, mainly because of the scarcity of written sources, but documents such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and the histories written by monks such as the Venerable Bede do give clues.

Equality for women in Anglo-Saxon society seems to have been closer than might have been expected. Women had rights protected in law, could own property and were considered ‘oath worthy’ with social responsibility for their own actions. Gender was less of issue than social status or religion. High status women are recorded as having real political influence and often an active role in public life.

The adoption of Christianity by Anglo-Saxon society seems to have led to greater respect and freedom especially for devout women. Female saints were venerated, and many religious orders had a convent of nuns governed by an Abbess, such as Hild of Whitby, contemporary with these burials.

Desborough and Harpole are within the historic kingdom of Mercia, stretching from Wales to East Anglia, and at the time both necklaces were created Mercia was ruled by warlord pagan Kings Cearl, then Penda, but Christianity was gaining the upper hand. Following the death of Penda, Mercia officially became a Christian kingdom in 655AD when Penda’s son Peada inherited. Peada had converted to Christianity in order to marry a princess of Northumbria, a cousin of Hild.

Sadly for Peada, his princess soon betrayed him as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and the Venerable Bede both tell us that Peada was "very wickedly killed" through his wife's treachery "during the very time of celebrating Easter" less than a year after their marriage. So high-status Anglo-Saxon women certainly did have agency!

What do we know about the two women who were buried with these beautiful necklaces? Their physical remains tell us little, so we need to look at the context. At this transitional time, grave goods were considered pagan and could not be interred in a Christian churchyard. Neither woman was, and their burials display pagan elements, but both seem Christian by their choice of adornment, so perhaps they were not a ‘professional’ Christian such as an abbess but a wealthy high status lay woman.

In 2022 a small team from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) was engaged to check out the site of a new housing development at Harpole before the builders moved in. They identified plenty of low-key Roman and Iron Age remains, nothing unusual, but the day before they were due to conclude their investigation, what they had thought was another rubbish pit turned into something else entirely. They saw gold, and tooth enamel, and realised that they were looking at a very high-status grave. It was an isolated burial, not in a graveyard, dug deeply into the ground thereby preserved from plough damage.

The Harpole treasure adorned an almost completely decomposed body. Her gender was confirmed by comparison with other positively identified female burials, both in the way she was buried, and what accompanied her final journey. The lady was laid to rest on a bed, organic remains suggest bedclothes. Her luxurious grave goods included a shallow copper bowl, and two imported incised ceramic pots containing residue still awaiting analysis.

But her most startling object was her large gold, gemstone and glass necklace. The pendants include nine ovals of gemstones and glass set in gold, and eight rare Roman coins of Theodosius I (r 379 – 395). The central decoration has a cross design in gold and garnets, appearing to be a re-purposed hinged clasp, similar to items found at Sutton Hoo, and in the Staffordshire Hoard. In between each of the pendants is a gold bicone bead. This has been tentatively dated to 630 – 670 AD.

Lying on top of her chest was a large silver cross decorated with small silver faces with blue glass eyes and a large central garnet. This cross is still being excavated under laboratory conditions, but x-rays show an exciting image. We will just have to be patient until further secrets are revealed!

So it seems we have a very high-status Christian woman, buried with care and respect. Perhaps she was an early Christian leader, a princess or a queen. More work will be done to understand who she might have been and why she was buried here, on her own.

The Desborough necklace was discovered in 1876, before the development of modern archaeological methods. The Saxon name of Desborough was ‘Disburg’ which may have meant ‘a sacred and fortified place’. Sixty-two burials were found by the workmen inside the remains of an ancient enclosure by the Parsonage Garden, along Paddock Lane east of St Giles’ Church. Sixty bodies were buried in trenches without coffins, in a typically Christian orientation with their heads to the west. The other two were separate in a small outstanding area. One was the lady with the necklace, and the accompanying female burial contained two amber glass drinking tumblers, a large bronze saucepan, and a two bowled white metal spoon, a pair of scales and a metal buckle.

Sir Henry Dryden ‘The Antiquary’ of Canons Ashby, noted that workmen digging for ironstone had discovered the gold necklace with a female skeleton. They had immediately divided it up between them, pocketing the gold and garnet pendants. The men had to be given a reward before they surrendered the pieces. Sir Henry noted that they may not have recovered all the elements and it might be incomplete. At only eight inches it is too short to go around a neck completely, but of course that may not have been how it was intended to be worn.

The Desborough Necklace bears strong similarities with the Harpole treasure. It has thirty seven individual elements, both gold and garnet cabochon pendants, bicone shaped gold beads, barrel shaped beans and again a central gold cross with a small garnet coloured glass cabochon mounted centrally. It gleams! If the necklace is indeed complete, it may have been pinned onto clothing below the neckline, or along the collarbone. It would have looked very fine.

Sadly, archaeological methodology in 1876 was not what it is now, and much information has been lost. We can only speculate about what else there might have been there to discover.

The Harpole Necklace has pride of place in the British Museum, looking quite the finest of all the Anglo-Saxon necklaces on display.

If you want to get closer to this wonderful jewel, I can recommend a visit to the fabulous Desborough Heritage Centre. Here you can see an exquisite reproduction of the necklace created with real garnets and silver gilt. Entirely handmade, this jewel gives an excellent idea of what the original would have looked like when it was new.

The centre has lots more to see, covering several millennia of Desborough’s past. This includes a wonderful reproduction of the world famous, two thousand years old, bronze Desborough mirror, and other collections with items as varied as strap-on Victorian roller skates, and even a racing penny farthing bicycle. It is simply everything Desborough, and entirely staffed by friendly volunteers. It is well worth the visit.