We explore 4 artifacts found at Stonehenge and other henge sites that happen to contain hidden designs. In this post, you will find the YouTube video exploring these artifacts, and a full video transcript (with relevant sources and links).

YouTube Video

YouTube Video Transcript

Here, you will find the complete transcript of the video in the previous section with hyperlinked references/citations.

Intro

In 1968, the A303 highway in southern England (stretching from Basingstoke in Hampshire to Honiton in Devon) was widened. This highway passes through Wiltshire, home to one of the most famous archaeological sites, Stonehenge. Although this UNESCO site and associated henge sites are well known, you might not know about some of the artifacts found there, including these.

Hi! I’m Dr. Smiti Nathan, and I’m an archaeologist. IIn this video, we’re going to explore 4 artifacts found at these henge sites that happen to contain hidden designs.

Overview

These are two square, chalk plaques that were found in a Late Neolithic pit (ca. 3000-2500 BCE), known as the Chalk Plaque Pit, near Amesbury, Wiltshire, in England. To this small assemblage, two more fragmentary plaques have been found more recently – one from Butterfield Down, Amesbury and one from Bulford. 

Chalk Plaques

These Neolithic objects are rectangular in shape and range from around 45-72mm in length. They are made from chalk, which is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary rock, which was a popular material during the Neolithic period in this region. Because they are made from chalk, the surfaces of these objects were easily smoothed. This means that images and designs could fairly easily be etched, altered, and even erased These plaques are not the only chalk objects from the broader region during the Neolithic, but they are what we’re going to focus on for this video. 

All four chalk plaques were found in a 5 km cluster near Stonehenge. Together, these four plaques form a rare assemblage that beautifully showcases ancient engraved chalk in Britain. They may also constitute the oldest art found at this World Heritage site. 

So let’s take a look at each of these plaques individually, starting with the two complete plaques. These plaques were incised with geometric designs. They were found together in the Chalk Plaque Pit, with Late Neolithic Grooved Ware potsherds – this detail will be important later. The whole assemblage has been dated to around 3030–2580 cal BCE based on radiocarbon dating animal bones found at the base of the pit.

When it comes to the Butterfield Down plaque it was incised on one side with a series of vertical parallel lines surrounded by a narrow border, and on the other side with two horizontal bands of vertical lines along the top and bottom of the plaque. Perpendicular grooves were scored into the edges of the plaque. This plaque was found in a Romano-British pit but has not been conclusively dated. Scholars compared the plaques’ decorative designs with similar designs of other objects to estimate their date. However, there is a slight debate on which time period the motifs actually represent. 

Finally, the Bulford fragment was recently excavated from a Late Neolithic pit. This pit also contained Woodlands sub-style Grooved Ware, which dated to approximately 2950 BCE. So scholars felt confident that this plaque dates to around that time period too.

What’s interesting here is that scholars used a variety of dating methods to figure out the age of these plaques based on the information available to them. However, new work has added another level of detail to these plaques’ story.

New Technological Analyses

The researchers who originally analyzed these engraved chalk plaques created hand-drawn illustrations, as well as taking black-and-white photos; however, more recently, researchers applied advanced digital photographic analyses to these artifacts. These include as Polynomial Texture Mapping, aka PTM, and Reflectance Transformation Imaging, aka RTI. Both methods allow us to view the surfaces of objects with greater image resolution and to see new details that might have been obscured before.

We’re going to focus on RTI in this video. It’s a photographic method that captures many images of a single object that has been subjected to a light source from various angles. When these images are uploaded to an RTI viewer platform, it’s possible to view the object as a 3D model and move the light source around. The changing light source can produce different shadows and highlights. This is important because we can see details that might have been scratched or etched onto the surface in the past that would otherwise be invisible to the eye.

The Wessex Archaeology team that performed RTI on these plaques, has been able to detect new “artistic elements” that were previously unseen. 

If we look at Plaque 1, it is decorated with a design now known as a “Greek Key,” or stepped design. This meandering design winds around the plaque and contains, within it, additional dotted and slashed incised marks. The design is mirrored below on the bottom half of the plaque. RTI demonstrated a sequence in the engravings. Before the stepped design was etched, a series of chevrons, a symbol common in ancient art of this time period, was incised.

Explanations

So what do these geometric and criss-crossed incised decorations mean? Well, unfortunately, we don’t know. However, these decorations resemble those found on Grooved Ware pottery, which we mentioned earlier as they were found alongside these plaques, as well as other Late Neolithic objects found at other sites, so it seems to be a common motif. 

Outro

These findings are literally shedding light on what we currently consider the ‘golden age’ of Neolithic chalk art.” We’re also getting some glimpses into the creativity  and intentionality of the ancient artists who created these plaques. In fact, there’s little evidence for erasing or reworking the designs. The designs appear to have been deliberately planned and composed through the use of templates and mathematically dividing up the space on these plaques. Using such high-tech imaging techniques has helped us learn and document these artifacts in a way that contributes to our ongoing understanding of art in Neolithic Britain.

This video is part of our Artifact of the Day series, where we take a quick look at one intriguing object from the past. If you’re interested in watching another artifact of the day video, check out the video here.

Credits

Brooke Norton: Series Lead, Co-Producer, Researcher, Scriptwriter

Noor Hanania: Lead Video Editor, Peer Reviewer, Logo Designer

Anya Gruber: Peer Reviewer

Sneh P. Patel: Peer Reviewer

Smiti Nathan: Director, Co-Producer, Support Video Editor, Researcher, Scriptwriter

Patreon Supporters

Thank you to our paid Patreon members for supporting the creation of this video:

Nancy Fulton, Giancarlo Annese, Thomas Martin, Stuart A. Griffin, Tagg, Ann Brookens, Diana Madden, Cole Guinn, Seemingly Unrelated Podcast, Chris, GeometryGirl, John McGrath, Carmen Guerrero

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