In its near thirty-year existence, the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) has been a tremendous success. Not just on account of the more than 1.4 million items now recorded for all on its database, but for the constructive partnership it has built up between the professional archaeological community and responsible hobby metal detectorists. The Searcher magazine, arguably the journal of amateur detectorists, now even has a regular column by the British Museum’s head of the PAS.
The PAS has also played an important role in educating the general public about linking archaeological finds with our historical story and the importance of appreciating our heritage. In that vein, Amberley Publishing’s series on ‘50 Finds’ from the PAS makes an important contribution to disseminating the worth and knowledge gained from the scheme, and one at least of these two recent additions is no exception.
The fashion for narrating the past through a judiciously finite selection of its remains initiated by Neil MacGregor in A History of the World in 100 Objects (2010), has proved a popular tool for academics and works well in the context of this series. The fact that the Amberley volumes deal with fifty objects rather than MacGregor’s hundred should not be seen in any respect as a downgrade. With over 35,000 Early Medieval non-coin finds recorded on the PAS database, the selection process is still challenging.
50 Early Medieval Finds complements the sister volumes including Post Medieval and Modern (Burnett and Webley 2024) and Bronze Age (Boughton 2021). The five chapters cover the rebranded Dark Ages from the end of Roman authority to the Norman era, illustrated through a wide selection of functional everyday items rather than just the exceptional or shiniest. The use of jewellery and buckle finds from well into the fifth century still incorporating clear Roman militaristic designs underlines the longevity of earlier styles and the gradualness of the transition from Roman to Saxon rather than an abrupt event.
The evolution of jewellery designs reflecting the influence of incoming settlers is a central feature of the volume, from copper-alloy penannular and saucer brooches through to gold coin pendants that became popular in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, with more than a nod to far-reaching Byzantine influence. The emergence of Christian iconography on jewellery from the seventh century onwards is evidenced by simple gold cross pendants, but fascinatingly with distinctly pre-Christian runic lettering. The Christian theme is continued with the selection of a high status Agnes Dei gold ring from the ninth century and a late Anglo-Saxon censer mount.
The incorporation of various examples of horse-related metalware through the age, Viking swords, rare surviving stitched leather shoes, and hacksilver ingots provides a rewarding canter through a wide variety of finds and influences audited in an easily interpreted chronology. The two experienced finds liaison officers (FLOs) who authored the book tell a convincing story about the tools of their trade, for which they clearly have a passion.
Aside from county-based volumes detailing PAS finds from geographical areas, often written by local FLOs, there are also generic volumes in the Amberley series on coinage by period as well 50 Finds from Childhood (Hawkins 2024). As such it is difficult to see how this new volume covering 50 LGBTQ+ Finds fits in, and by the end it becomes clear that unfortunately this is an idea almost wholly detached from the evidence provided by an otherwise unlinked selection of individual objects. Essentially this is a book with some random accounts of attitudes to LGBTQ+ throughout the ages. Most of the fifty artefacts play at best a walk-on part selected with terminology seen almost exclusively through a modern prism.
The author, again an experienced FLO, opens with the claim that the book is ‘the history of individuals who did not conform to the expectations of sexuality and gender at the time and within the cultures they lived’. His opening exhibits are a Roman intaglio of Alexander the Great followed by coins issued by various Roman emperors. Later in the volume, coins of various English kings and queens are used as a link to rulers similarly strongly suspected of being gay or bisexual.
Alexander’s relationship with his general Hephaestion, despite fathering children through marriages to women, is well known, but did it represent a departure from societal conformity when the author claims in the same section that the ‘Romans predominantly saw same-sex activity as linked to social status?’, ie it was what the ruling classes unremarkably ‘got up to.’ Regarding the classical Greeks, any considerations over conformity were not linked so much to the matching of genders but rather the appropriateness of who assumed the dominant or passive sexual role.
Simply using a series of regular coins identified by the PAS displaying the heads of sovereigns who may have been ‘irregular’ in their sexuality does not prove anything. Given the likely sexual preferences of many Roman emperors and European rulers, no doubt all fifty spots could have been filled with similar coins if available on the PAS register. So what?
The author then strays into the world of possibly gay saints. A pilgrim badge of St Sebastian is offered ‘although there is no real indication that the historical figure of Sebastian had same-sex relationships’, but apparently ‘he has been adopted by the gay community in recent years’ for reasons unknown. A beautiful gold tau cross pendant is offered to justify the link to St Francis as ‘one of several saints who resisted gender binaries’ apparently! For good measure there is an accompanying illustration of a 1926 sketch showing St Francis of Assisi in a cave with a praying monk, described as ‘possibly his lover’. Evidence please?
The links between random famous individuals appearing on finds and their assumed sexuality becomes even more tenuous with the section on ‘The Natural World’. A copper-alloy giraffe design badge is used to link to a study by a no doubt eminent zoologist who studied the ‘necking’ activity between male giraffes. Then a toy bear from the 1800s found in Nottinghamshire is produced as Exhibit 13 to justify the fact that ‘bears are a subgroup within the gay community, characterised as being larger, hairy men’. Otters, ducks, whales and a peacock ‘in his pride’ follow.
Again, the disconnect is baffling. If the description of hairy gay men was contemporary with the toy from the 1800s, then a link could be made. If giraffe motifs had been worn by communities in the past as a way of covertly communicating their sexuality to like-minded giraffe followers, then its inclusion in the book would have a point.
Herein lies the problem. The book is a precis of modern LGBTQ+ terms seen through the prism of contemporary parlance and attitudes and applied retrospectively to completely unconnected archaeological artefacts that happen to appear on the PAS register. The use of terms that litter the volume, such as ‘cisgendered’, ‘TERFS’, ‘stonewall’ and even ‘gay’ itself, other than as happy, were completely unknown to the people who owned, handled or issued these objects in pre-twentieth century societies. Photographs of modern gay rights demonstrations, pride flags and Hans Christian Andersen add to the arbitrariness of the illustrations.
The closest the book comes to linking LGBTQ+ with PAS finds is the inclusion of a labrys, or double-sided axe. The Romans associated the symbol with the legendary Amazonian female warrior race, and because of the implied lesbian link it had been adopted by the modern lesbian community. Perhaps I am being too generous.
The author has produced some interesting narratives about historical attitudes to LGBTQ+ communities. He has also identified some interesting individual items from the PAS database. Alas there is little evidential or chronological basis to link them.
