Grave goods

Objects placed with the deceased on burial. They may represent personal possessions, offerings to the dead man’s spirit, or provisions for the spirit in, or on its journey to, the afterlife. What was considered appropriate to bury with the dead changed throughout time and depending on the status of the deceased. The Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age burial at Church Farm, Bierton was buried with a pottery beaker, tinder and a barbed and tanged arrowhead. The Saxon burial under Taplow Barrow was accompanied with an Egyptian Coptic bowl, glass vessels, a shield, gaming pieces, a harp and many other things. These were probably both burials of important people. Further down the scale many burials are not accompanied by any objects.