The Celts
Dr J D Hill of the British Museum on Celtic torcs …
Putting torcs, which were quite rigid, around the neck must have been difficult. You have to squeeze one end into your jugular and twist. If the terminals are carved from solid gold, the torc would be very heavy. After a while, you would really start to feel it across the shoulders. If you wear one of these for any length of time, it’s going to force you to hold your body in a particular way ...
And we do know that they were worn because a lot of them have repairs, and you can often see the wear patterns that appear at the very back of the torc, caused by opening and shutting it ...
An important thing about torcs is that they are not found in graves and burials – in Britain, they are always found on their own, deliberately buried in holes in the ground. This suggests that they were not so much about individuals but about the offices that those individuals held, their status. And at Snettisham, for example, the torcs were buried in groups. It’s not like an individual grave containing one. What you’ve actually got are lots of torcs, presumably worn by the leading members of different communities.
The ceremonies when these were deposited in the ground could have been huge gatherings taking place on hill tops with prominent views over the landscape. It must have been amazing. But what’s even more astonishing is that a number of these depositions of torcs took place at different times in north-west Norfolk. It was not just a one-off event. It is also amazing that perhaps several thousand gold coins were needed to make each of these objects, and yet they’re found in a part of Iron-Age Britain that we don’t normally regard as being important at that time.
It’s surprising that no one stole them afterwards. To me, this is further evidence for the likelihood that this was a ritual activity. There must have been strong taboos preventing people from going back into the burials.
