The Deal Warrior, also known as the Mill Hill Warrior, is an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

burial uncovered in Grave 112 at Mill Hill near

Deal A deal, or deals may refer to: Places United States * Deal, New Jersey, a borough * Deal, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * Deal Lake, New Jersey Elsewhere * Deal Island (Tasmania), Australia * Deal, Kent, a town in England * Deal, ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in 1988 by Dover Archaeological Group. It is well known for being suggested as the grave of a druid due to containing an almost-unique bronze headdress.

Background

The grave, dated to around 250 to 150 BCE, contained the skeleton of a man in his thirties, short and slightly built. With the skeleton was a long iron sword, bronze fittings for a

scabbard A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, knife, or other large blade. As well, rifles may be stored in a scabbard by horse riders. Military cavalry and cowboys had scabbards for their saddle ring carbine rifles and lever-action rifles on the ...

and belt, a bronze

brooch A brooch (, also ) is a decorative jewelry item designed to be attached to garments, often to fasten them together. It is usually made of metal, often silver or gold or some other material. Brooches are frequently decorated with enamel or with g ...

studded with coral, and bronze fittings for a large shield. The quality of these finds suggests the grave was a high status burial, as swords were an expensive item available only to the aristocracy and their retainers, and the wealthier freemen.

The crown

On the skull was a bronze headband, with the remains of another band that would have gone over the top. Both the skull and the "crown", as it came to be named, were badly damaged, thought by the archaeologists who discovered it to be the result of ploughing. Closer inspection after cleaning revealed it to be intricately decorated in the La Tène style. The bronze, now dull, would once have been burnished till it shone. Examination also revealed imprints of hair on the inside of the crown, indicating it was worn without a liner, also proving it was not worn over a leather helmet, as some had suggested.

Druid theory

A connection has been drawn between this crown and headdresses found in later

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

religious sites at

Hockwold Hockwold cum Wilton (''"Hock/mallow wood and willow-tree farm/settlement"'') is 10 miles west of Thetford, Norfolk, England and is in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk. It is located near several USAF airbases, notably RAF Lakenheath a ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, and Wanborough, Surrey. It also bears a resemblance to descriptions of Iron Age antiquarian finds from

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and

Cerrig-y-Drudion Cerrigydrudion, sometimes spelt ''Cerrig-y-drudion'', () is a village and community in Conwy, Wales. Until 1974 it was part of the historic county Denbighshire, when it became part of the newly formed county of Clwyd. When the county of Clwyd wa ...

, Clwyd. It has been suggested that headdresses found at Romano-British temples may have been following a long-standing tradition. The implied religious connection has led some historians to suggest that the Deal Warrior may well have been a druid, a member of the pre-Roman British intellectual and priestly class. Others have suggested the crown, together with the warrior nature of the burial, implies a military leader.

References

* * * * * {{cite book , editor=Parfitt, Keith , title=Iron Age Burials from Mill Hill, Deal , publisher=British Museum Press , location=London , date=1995 , isbn=0-7141-2304-8 , pages=58–95 Iron Age sites in England