Dirks from Kimberley, Oxborough, Plougrescant, Beaune and East Rudham respectively in The World of Stonehenge exhibition, British Museum (2022) and a closer look on the Oxborough Dirk. Credits – Wikipedia
The dagger was found during ploughing at East Rudham in 2002 or 2003. Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery negotiated with the landowner and agreed to purchase the dirk for £40,970. The National Heritage Memorial Fund contributed a grant of £38,970, while the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society provided an additional £2,000.
Because of its unusual size but also because of what its deliberate bending reveals about Bronze Age ritual practices, the Rudham Dirk is significant not only.
The National Heritage Memorial Fund said its trustees wanted to secure the object for public display and ensure it remained in Norfolk. Dr Tim Pestell, the museum’s senior curator of archaeology, said the discovery offered insight into the beliefs and contacts of people during the Middle Bronze Age. The farmer who discovered it did not recognise its archaeological importance and took it to his farm office, where he used it as a doorstop. Together, these contributions covered the full purchase price. Norwich Castle Museum planned to display it permanently in its archaeology galleries. He also hoped that displaying the object would help residents and visitors understand the region’s ancient history. Its blunt blade and lack of handle fittings suggest it was never intended for ordinary combat. Its acquisition by Norwich Castle Museum also ensured that an exceptionally rare archaeological find remained in the region where it was discovered.
Unlike the earlier Oxborough dirk, which is held by the British Museum in London, the Rudham Dirk would stay in the county where it was discovered.
The British Museum believes that it had been placed vertically into soft peaty earth approximately 3,500 years earlier and that a man wandering in woodlands near Oxborough tripped over it in 1988. Such a dirk would have weighed 2.37 kilogrammes (5.2 pounds) and measured 70.9 centimetres (27.9 inches) long, too unwieldy to be of practical use. A lone bronze dirk did not fall under England’s Treasure Act, which requires finds to have two or more bronze pieces or at least one thing composed of precious metal, according to a research chapter released by Sidestone .
There are only six dirks of this type known in Europe, two from France, two from the Netherlands and two from Britain. The other British case was likewise in Norfolk. Museum curators suggest that it may have been manufactured for ceremonial purposes or as a store of riches. Its catalogue article adds that the Oxborough dirk and its four continental parallels are so similar that they may all have been made in a single workshop, though nobody can say whether that workshop stood in Britain or across the water. The owner has no legal duty to pass it over and any acquisition would be a matter of negotiation.
