Image bank: notes for teachers
People of Iron Age Britain
Object image bank
About image banks
Image banks provide a set of images on a specific topic for teachers to use in any
way they need. They are high resolution enough for use as a whiteboard resource,
and can be freely downloaded and copied for educational use.
This image bank
This image bank consists of 14 slides. The objects included provide evidence
about the people who lived in Iron Age Britain. Using objects which have survived
since the Iron Age period, this images bank offers an opportunity to consider who
lived in Iron Britain, how they portrayed themselves, what they wore, how this
clothing was produced and how people adorned themselves.
Find out more
The notes below each slide contain links to follow for more information on the
specific object(s). To find the object on the Museum’s online database, go to
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx and
open the ‘Advanced search options’ pane. The final section gives the option to
‘Search by Museum number or reference’. Enter the Museum number exactly as
it appears underneath the slide. Tick the ‘images only’ box if you only wish to view
entries with images.
The database features over 2 million objects in total. Enter ‘Iron Age Britain’ to
see all the objects from that period.
Background information
The Iron Age in Britain
Around 800 BC iron working techniques reached Britain from mainland Europe.
While bronze was still used, iron was used for tools, weapons and other items
such as horse fittings. This was because iron was more readily available than the
tin and copper needed to make bronze. In Britain, the Iron Age lasted until AD 43
when Britain became part of the Roman Empire, after which historians talk about
Roman Britain. The British Iron Age saw both continuity and change. Many
aspects of life continued from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age alongside
changes such as the widespread use of iron. Towards the end of the Iron Age,
aspects of Roman culture were introduced to southern Britain, especially in the
period after the attempts by Julius Caesar to invade Britain in 55 and 54 BC.
Many aspects of Iron Age life continued into Roman times especially in the
western and northern areas of Britain which were further away from the
heartlands of the province in the south and the east.
Image bank: notes for teachers
The people of Iron Age Britain
The people living in Iron Age Britain left no written record of their history or their
identity. Archaeologists have to use burial remains and excavated objects to
build up an understanding of this time. There is little evidence for what people
looked like. Iron Age Britons almost never carved or made images of people.
The human images which do occur are highly stylized images.
During the late Iron Age, information about the people living in Iron Age Britain is
recorded in the observations of classical writers from the Mediterranean world
who had heard about, or possibly visited, Britain. The Romans called the Iron
Age people Britones or Britanni (Britons). The Britons spoke Celtic languages,
which probably originally spread to Britain through trade and other contacts.
Several million people probably lived in Britain by the end of the Iron Age. The
regeneration of forest areas suggests that there may have been a decline in
population during this period. Most people lived in extended family units. Life
expectancy was around 35-40 years. There was continuing contact between
Britain and mainland Europe with some people moving between the two areas
for settlement or trade purposes. There is no evidence of any mass migrations of
'the Celts' into Britain.
There appears to be a development of regional identity during the Iron Age and
by the end of the period groups of people appear to identify themselves with
distinctive regional groups (often referred to as tribes) each led by a single ruler.
Personal appearance
During the Iron Age people were almost never shown as statues or carved as part
of the decoration on objects. Information about personal appearance is therefore
based on analysis of human remains, very rare pieces of surviving fragments of
textile, the tools used to make clothing and pieces of jewellery.
Little clothing has survived from the Iron Age because it rots easily. Materials
such as wool, linen, skins and fur are only preserved in very dry conditions, or in
particular anaerobic (oxygen-free) waterlogged conditions such as peat bogs.
Such conditions are rare in Britain and, even though archaeologists sometimes
find waterlogged conditions when they excavate Iron Age settlements built near
rivers, marshes or lakes, clothes are rarely found. Perhaps old clothes were
burnt, repaired or used as rags.
Most cloth was probably made from sheep's wool. Flax was also grown to make
linen, animal skins were tanned to make leather, and furs and feathers were
used to make or decorate clothes. Dyes for clothes would have been limited to
browns, reds, and yellows along with white and black. Basic clothing was
probably a woollen or linen shirt and trousers for men/boys and a dress or blouse
and skirt for women/girls. Everybody wore cloaks or shawls. Jewellery shows
that personal appearance changed over time and that people from one part of
Britain might have looked very different from those from another part.
Image bank: notes for teachers
Most settlements made and repaired clothing. Tools for making clothes are often
found when an Iron Age village is excavated. Small round spindle whorls were
used to weight a spindle, a tool used to spin wool into thread. The threads were
woven into cloth on a loom. Although wooden looms are not usually preserved
the large weights that were used to keep the threads tight survive. The weights
were hung along the bottom of the loom. Long handled weaving combs made
from animal bone or deer antler were used when weaving woollen cloth on a
loom. Some combs have a hole through the end of the handle, possibly for a
leather thong or piece of rope, so that the comb could be tied to or hung on a
person's belt. Other bone tools were used to make holes in cloth or to sew pieces
of cloth together to make clothes.
Brooches were the commonest type of jewellery worn. They were often very
simple and acted as pins for holding clothes together. Some people owned
brooches with decoration that might include red or white coral, or red glass.
Glass beads were only made in a few places in Iron Age Britain and most were
imported. Many people would have only worn one or two glass beads, if any at
all, often as earrings or in the hair. Bangles were usually worn around the wrists,
but in some parts of northern Europe they were also worn as anklets. Bracelets
could be made out of bronze, but could also be carved out of soft stone such as
shale or jet. Rings were very uncommon, and might have been worn on a finger
or a toe.
Image bank: notes for teachers
Key vocabulary
Iron Age Britain: the period of British history from around 800BC to AD 43.
Celts: the name often used for people who lived in Iron Age Britain and parts of
Europe. It is also used to describe aspects of life at this time such as Celtic
languages, Celtic art, Celtic religion.
Archaeology: the recovery and study of material remains of human activity in the
past. Often involves digging down into the soil to find things which have been
buried over time. In archaeology the deeper you dig, the older the objects you
might find. Archaeology can including looking at objects above ground such as a
building or structure which has survived over time e.g. Stonehenge, a Roman fort.
Regional: an area of a bigger country e.g. northern England, East Anglia, the
West Country. Regional can refer to something which is special to a particular
group of people or area such as the way in which pottery is decorated, the style of
jewellery worn or types of settlements.
Personal appearance: what people look like both in terms of physical features
and the types of clothing and jewellery people choose to wear.
Personal adornment: a term often used by archaeologists to cover all the things
that humans use to decorate themselves. This includes jewellery and clothing. It
could also include markings added to the skin such as tattoos or hair styles. The
ways in which a person chooses to adorn themselves will be linked to social
messages around self-identity, regional identity, gender, wealth and social
position.
Roundhouses: the typical type of domestic dwelling built by people in the Iron
Age. Round houses were constructed from locally sources natural materials such
as timber and straw. The name reflects the usually shape of these houses.
Roundhouses continued to be constructed in Britain after the arrival of the
Romans in AD 43. The outline of these roundhouses is often found by
archaeologists digging on an Iron Age or Roman site and there are many modern
reconstructions showing what they most probably looked like.
Image bank: notes for teachers
Teaching ideas
Key learning outcomes:
 no naturalistic portraits of people from the Iron Age have been found
 human faces from the Iron Age period are shown in a stylized manner
 the head seems to have been consisted an important part of the body and it is
the most common part of the body portrayed on objects
Before looking at the images, ask the students how we know what people looked
like in the Iron Age. What sort of evidence do they think there is?
Look at each image in turn and ask the students to find the face on each object.
Discuss the difference between a naturalistic and a stylized portrait. Find modern
examples of these types of portraits. Look at the portrait work of an artist such as
Picasso. How are different parts of the face shown, which parts of the face were
accentuated, what are your thoughts as you look at the face?
Compare the Iron Age faces shown and decide if there are common ways of
showing particular parts of the face, for example the lentil shape given to eyes.
Are there any features shown on only one face which may be more individual, for
example the moustache on the first face.
Put the students into pairs and ask them to draw their partner twice – once using
a naturalistic style and then as a stylized Iron Age portrait. Compare the works
produced across the class.
Ask the students to create their own hidden face patterns similar to the one
shown on the mirror or draw an everyday object with a face in an unexpected
place, for example a pencil with the end rubber in the shape of a human head.
Mould a small Iron Age style head out of air-drying clay, ensure the back of the
head is flat so that the finished head can be attached to a flat surface. When dry,
the front of the head can be painted with metallic paint. Select an Iron Age object
to adorn with the mini-heads. For example a bucket, a shield front, a mirror back.
Create a large outline of the object using card and ask the students to select a
position for their head. This activity could also be done in small groups with each
group using their mini-heads to adorn a different type of object.
Compare Iron Age images of human faces with portraits from another culture/time
period such as ancient Egyptian tomb paintings or the Benin plaques.
Image bank: notes for teachers
Key learning outcomes:
 little textile has survived from the Iron Age although impressions have been
found on other objects
 textiles and clothing was usually made locally
 textiles and the tools used to made clothes were sourced from the natural
environment, usually locally
Before looking at the images ask the students what tools are used to make clothes.
Then look at the images and ask them to say what they think each object might be.
Create impressions of textiles and/or objects on plasticine. In pairs, one student
could create an impression and then ask their partner to work out what made it.
Create a chart of manufactured and natural textiles. Identify the source of each
textile and start to think about which textiles may and may not have been available
in the Iron Age. Create a handling collection of different types of textiles.
Practise weaving with paper, notched card and wool. Create a class loom with
suspended threads weighed with loom weights made from air-drying clay and
weave using wool or for a quicker outcome use ribbon or strips of fabric. Try
spinning wool with a spindle whorl, dying and sewing.
Consider the types of clothing worn today, the textiles they are made from and the
function of different types of clothing, e.g. keeping warm, keeping dry, personal
adornment, demonstrating identity.
Investigate Iron Age clothing materials. Test them for warmth, durability, flexibility
and permeability. For example, ask the students to test how waterproof pieces of
woollen cloth, leather and linen are. Set up a test for the students to undertake or
ask students to devise a fair way of testing the qualities of each piece of material.
Soil conditions are key to the preservation of clothing from the past. Bury some
textile and recover it after a certain number of weeks to look at its condition. This
could either be the same type of textile buried in different conditions (very wet soil,
water, dry soil) or different types of textile all buried in the same conditions.
Create a ‘then and now’ clothing catalogue using images from modern clothing
brochures and a reconstruction of what may have been worn in the Iron Age for
the same occasion. Images can be annotated with comments about the different
types of clothing such as ‘Modern plastic coat for keeping the clothes underneath
dry in the rain’, ‘Iron Age woollen cloak for keeping warm and for wearing in light
rain, would have got very wet in heavy rain’.
Image bank: notes for teachers
Key learning outcomes:
 people wore a range of jewellery to adorn different parts of the body
 jewellery was made from a range of materials
 jewellery can indicate the type of clothing being worn by a person
Revise the vocabulary for different types of jewellery.
Discuss why people wear jewellery nowadays e.g. to show wealth, as personal
adornment, to show status, to demonstrate identity. This activity will help to create
a framework for how the students think about Iron Age jewellery as a social
indicator as well as an aesthetic and functional item.
Create a ‘then and now’ jewellery chart using images from a modern jewellery
catalogue and images from museum objects. Compare modern and Iron Age
jewellery – what are the similarities and differences?
Create some Iron Age jewellery: make a brooch using a circle of gold card
decorated with shiny paper and stick on gems, make a torc by twisting gold pipe
cleaners together, make a necklace from beads, make an armlet from thick card
decorated with Celtic designs, then shape and staple it ready to wear on the upper
arm.
Make a collection of different pin badges and costume brooches. Experiment with
pinning different badges/brooches on to cloth to investigate how easy they are to
secure and how many layers of cloth they will hold together. Using several large
pieces of cloth, ask the students to drape and pin the cloth to investigate the best
places to wear a badge/brooch and the size/depth of brooch needed to hold
different layers of cloth.
Look at the designs used to decorate the backs of Iron Age mirrors. Ask the
students to create a design for a mirror back, including the shape and style of the
handle. Students can research design motifs from other decorated objects from
Iron Age Britain and Europe to collect inspiration (e.g. plants, faces, geometric
shapes) for their mirror design.
Image bank: notes for teachers
Further reading
For teachers
Celtic Art by Ian Stead (British Museum Press, 1996)
Britain and the Celtic Iron Age by S. James and V. Rigby (British Museum Press,
1997)
Online information

Find out about Iron Age objects found in your local area using the Portable
Antiquities Scheme PAS database at www.finds.org.uk.

Other Iron Age Britain classroom resources: Celtic design image bank
http://www.britishmuseum.org/learning/schools_and_teachers/resources/all_re
sources-1/resource_celtic_design.aspx

Look for prehistoric objects among the 100 objects from museums across the
UK available online to support history teaching. All objects are supported with
information, resources and teaching idea. http://teachinghistory100.org/
Iron Age sites in Britain
Maiden Castle (English Heritage)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/maiden-castle/
Stanwick Iron Age Fortifications (English Heritage)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stanwick-iron-agefortifications/
Castlelaw Hill Fort (Historic Scotland)
http://www.historicscotland.gov.uk/index/places/propertyresults/propertydetail.htm?PropID=PL_062
Chysauster ancient village (English Heritage)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/chysauster-ancient-village/
Danebury hillfort at Andover Museum (Hampshire County Council)
http://www3.hants.gov.uk/museum-of-the-ironage