Rome’s Enemies: The Iceni

Author: Megan Dennis of Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, (2008), “Silver of the Iceni”, first published in Current Archaeology 217, reprinted in The Imperial Courier, Volume 3, Issue 4, THE RMRS, p. 6.

The traditional image is of backward, hostile, blue-painted hordes led by a red-haired fury. Unlike the Celtic sophisticates of the South East, with their wheel-thrown table wares and imported wines, the Norfolk Iceni were rural primitives. Or were they? Megan Dennis, specialist in Late Iron Age metalwork, pays tribute to the high culture of Boudica’s people.

The Iceni are famous for two things - Boudicca and gold. Little else is known of this society that existed in the shadowlands between the Iron Age and the Roman periods in Norfolk, Suffolk, and north-east Cambridgeshire. Archaeological evidence seems to suggest they were bumbling and backward compared to their southern neighbours. New research has revealed evidence for a complex society, fascinating politics, and above all a lively and fast-changing relationship with near neighbours, with the Continent, and with Rome.

Barbarians or sophisticates? Certainly the pottery was basic. Nor did the Iceni build grand monuments like the hillforts known in other parts of Britain. But if the Iceni were so backward, so removed from trade routes and contact, where did they get the raw materials for their beautiful objects? What the Iceni were good at was working gold and silver into torcs, brooches, bracelets, and coins. But where was the raw material coming from? And how did the Iceni get the knowledge and skills to work precious metals into such beautiful artefacts? Gold had been in use for thousands of years and is likely to have been recycled from earlier objects. But the Iceni made East Anglia’s first ever silver artefacts. There are no silver deposits in the region and the metal must therefore have been imported.

Torcs, coins, and ornaments One of the most common types of silver objects made and used by the Iceni was the torc, a large ring worn around the neck like a type of rigid necklace. The designs vary - from a very simple type to a much more ornate item made from many twisted wires and with elaborate terminals decorated with graceful, swooping designs. The Iceni made a series of silver coins depicting different animals and people important to their society. You can see faces, horses, boars, and more abstract patterns on Icenian coins. Some even have writing on them - the first writing in Britain. The ability to create this beautiful art in such small spaces must not be underestimated. They also made silver pins, bracelets, brooches, and religious items and used silver as decoration on everyday objects. So where was the silver coming from?

After analysing over 100 Icenian silver objects and comparing the results with those of other scientists working on other material from elsewhere, we discover that late prehistoric silver objects tend to contain less silver the later in date they are. The original silver used by the Iceni was impure, and there seems little doubt that it was recycled. Then the Icenian silversmiths discovered for themselves that they could dilute the metal by adding copper. But where was the source of the silver used in the earliest Icenian artefacts?

Boudicca: a would-be Roman queen? The very earliest coins - roughly mid-first century BC - have a silver content identical to that of Continental and Roman coins made at the same time. The Iceni, it seems, were importing Continental and/or Roman coins to melt down and make their own objects as well as copying European designs. Swanky imported objects from Europe have also been recorded, including an Etruscan bridle bit and several examples of an Early Hallstatt type brooch (artefacts which may pre-date the Roman Conquest by centuries).

What does this mean for the old argument that the Iceni were backward and marginal, with little contact with the rest of the world? It means it is wrong. Boudicca did not grow up without external contacts. She was part of a wide social and cultural network that crisscrossed Europe. She did not hate the Romans because they upset her way of life or altered her outlook. The Iceni were, in a sense, part of the Roman world a century before she was born. Boudicca was brought up in a society with strong connections and trading links to the Continent. She would have recognised and embraced the opportunities offered by the client kingdom. Her rebellion lasted only for a year or two. We should not let her dominate our view. Indeed, perhaps we should banish her from view altogether - at least for a while - and begin to think of Icenian society as complex, forward thinking, dynamic, and eager to establish contact with the wider world at the earliest opportunity.