This week’s Finds Friday featured in our monograph for Mitchell Laithes Farm and is an almost complete burial accessory cup, dating to the Bronze Age.

The cup was recovered from a small pit and was associated with an individual cremation burial deposit. It joins a relatively small number of Early Bronze Age burial associations that have been excavated in modern times in the West Yorkshire area, and so it was a very exciting find!

‘Accessory cups’ are essentially very small vessels, that come in various shapes, that are associated with cremation burials and are found either alone or are placed within a larger collared urn. This example is known as a ‘bipartite shape’, a class of vessel often deposited alone rather than as an accompaniment with the larger urns.

The cup stands at only 6.4cm high with a 6.6cm rim diameter and is made from a smooth buff fabric. It has very nice adornment, with an impressed fine twisted cord decoration on the exterior; paired horizontal lines below rim, under the shoulder, around the base and triple lines above the shoulder. The lines overlap in places with what is known as a ‘z twist’. There are also a series of pin holes into the inner rim bevel. An unusual feature is an internal ring-ridge, which is a rare aspect amongst such cups, although it has now become known as a local feature.

The cremated remains that were associated with the cup included two fragments of animal bone, one which was identified as pig and radiocarbon dating, gave us a date range of 1880-1680 cal BC.

To find out more about the Mitchell Laithes Farm project click here.