We all love the Asterix books. Remember Asterix in Britain? Well, the grave of a real-life warrior who may have travelled from Gaul to help fight Caesar in Britain just like Asterix and Obelix has been found.
Asterix in Britain
Asterix in Britain sees Asterix and Obelix called upon to help an isolated resisting village in Britain to defeat the Romans of Caesar. They attempt to smuggle a barrel of their eponymous magic potion through Roman occupied Britain to the village. Obelix gets drunk and is arrested and incarcerated in the Tower of London and one of my favourite scenes in the Asterix books is when Obelix fights his way out of the tower as Asterix fights his way up, finding that Obelix has already escaped Asterix then fights his way back out again as the guards plead for mercy. The barrel of magic potion is, however, lost – into the River Thames – before they can get it to the village to help in the fight, but Asterix boosts the morale of the Britons by added a mysterious leaf to their daily afternoon water, the British thus fortified win the day. This leaf later turns out to be tea.
Discovery
The grave was discovered in 2008 ahead of the building of a housing estate but the complexity and size of the find has meant it has taken years to conserve and analyse the artefacts.
Scientific analysis shows that the remains belong to someone who grew up in eastern France or England and the style of the burial rites and goods reflect a more continental style. It is possible that he travelled to Britain to help the British tribes fight the Roman invasions under Caesar or he was a refugee of the invasion of Gaul. In either case he was certainly a very important, powerful and wealthy individual: The grave goods are incredibly elaborate especially the grand and unique helmet decorated with intricate open work larger than any other open work found in Britain. He must have been accompanied also as the grave rights being continental in style are likely to have been conducted by people familiar with these rights.
Archaeologists have described the finds as “the most elaborately equipped warrior grave ever found in England”, Dr Melanie Giles, senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Manchester (originally quoted in The Daily Telegraph), said: “ It is absolutely a unique find in the British Isles and in the wider continent, we don’t have another burial that combines this quality of weaponry and Celtic art with a date that puts it around the time of Caesar’s attempted conquest of Britain.”
The collection went on display at the Novium Museum in January and is now available as a ‘virtual tour’ video on their website.