The Folkton Drums are a very rare set of three decorated chalk objects in the shape of drums or solid cylinders dating from the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

period. Found in a child's grave near the village of

Folkton Folkton is a small village and civil parish at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds and on the edge of the Vale of Pickering on an area known as Folkton Carr ( carr meaning low lands) in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England. Unti ...

in northern England, they are now on loan to Stonehenge Visitor Centre from the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. A similar object, the Burton Agnes drum was found 15 miles away near Burton Agnes in 2015, and another example, the Lavant drum, was excavated in 1993 in Lavant,

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

. Their purpose remains obscure. They were given the name "drum" to describe their shape, rather than from any thought they might be percussion instruments.

Discovery

In 1889, a round prehistoric barrow was opened by the scholar and amateur archaeologist

William Greenwell Canon William Greenwell, (23 March 1820 – 27 January 1918) was an English archaeologist and Church of England priest. Early life William Greenwell was born 23 March 1820 at the estate known as Greenwell Ford near Lanchester, County Durham, E ...

near

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

. Inside, he found a neolithic grave dating to the time of Stonehenge, estimated to be between 2600 and 2000 BC. The remains of several bodies were unearthed, one of whom was a child beside which the three drums were found. The rarity of this find suggests that the child came from an elite group in society. Four years after the discovery, the drums were donated by Greenwell, along with other parts of his collection, to the British Museum.

Description

The three drum-like forms are made of locally quarried chalk and are decorated with stylized human faces and geometric patterns. On the top of the cylinders are a series of concentric circles and two of them have pairs of eyes that

schematic A schematic, or schematic diagram, is a designed representation of the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the key information the ...

ally denote a human face. The decoration of the drums has similarities to objects made in the

Beaker culture The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age. Arising from a ...

and early British Bronze Age, including the use of chevron and lozenge forms. The purpose of the drums is not known for certain, although the dimensions of the drums may be significant. A study published in 2018 noted that the circumferences of the drums form whole-number divisions (ten, nine and eight times, respectively) of ten long feet, a unit of measure thought to have been widely used in

Britain. The drums could therefore have been used as measuring devices, as a means of achieving

standardisation Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...

in construction at different locations, or possibly as a teaching aid. According to author Prof. Andrew Chamberlain, "The existence of these measuring devices implies an advanced knowledge in prehistoric Britain of geometry and of the mathematical properties of circles.” The study also proposed that the drums represent ceremonial objects that have uniquely survived due to their unusual material, while most objects of this type may have been made out of wood. The Lavant drum, excavated in 1993, was previously identified as being analogous to the Folkton drums in 2005 by archaeologist Anne Teather. ''Includes full text of poem''

Legacy

Children's writer and poet

Michael Rosen Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is a British children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster and activist who has written 140 books. He served as Children's Laureate from 2007 to 2009. Early life Michael Wayne Ro ...

wrote a poem "Folkton Drums" in 2018 in connection with the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

's ''Grave Goods'' project.

Display

The three Folkton drums were displayed as part of the 2022 World of Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum, alongside the Burton Agnes Drum, which was in the public view for the first time.

Gallery

File:Folkton DrumsDSCF9508.JPG, Detail of the schematic face on one of the drums File:Folkton DrumsDSCF9509.JPG, View of another face with prominent features File:Folkton DrumsDSCF9510.JPG, Side image of a drum with geometric patterns File:Folkton DrumsDSCF6612.jpg, Alternative view of the three drums

References

Bibliography

{{commonscat *H. Longworth, 'The Folkton Drums unpicked' in Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland, Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 3 (Oxford, Oxbow Books, 1999), pp. 83–88 *D. V. Clarke, T. G. Cowie and A. Foxon, Symbols of power at the time of Stonehenge (London, HMSO, 1985) *I. A. Kinnes and I. H. Longworth, Catalogue of the excavated Prehistoric and Roman-British material in the Greenwell Collection (London, The British Museum Press, 1985) Prehistoric objects in the British Museum Stone Age sites in England

Prehistoric art In the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of rec ...

1889 archaeological discoveries