Everybody knows about the Iceni, thanks to Tacitus and his account of the Roman-bashing exploits of that famous freedom fighter/terrorist/rebel alliance leader, Queen Boudica. But that's about all that most people know about the Iceni - a whole society, remembered only through the life story of one elite individual. Which isn't altogether surprising, given the insane amount of resources elites can dedicate to bigging themselves up with ritualised status displays:
A lot has changed since some Very Important Person sacrificed the Snettisham hoard. But some things aren't all that different, not if you view a Tesla Roadster as an elaborate piece of metalwork, being ritually sacrificed in the most expensively impressive way possible.
I can imagine some space archaeologist of the far future speculating about the status rituals of the 21st Century elite, based on the discovery an ancient high-status ground vehicle, found inexplicably drifting in the asteroid belt. I don't know how our space archaeologist will write up the find, but I kind of hope it's in a paper called Chariots of the Gods, a great title hitherto blighted by association with a very silly book.
The elaborate metalwork found in Snettisham clearly represents an extremely high status, ritual offering that was committed by a group of social elites...From a description of the Snettisham hoard, a stash of Iceni bling which seems to have been buried in order to burnish the owners' bragging rights/rites.
...For such a large amount of elaborate metalwork to be taken out of circulation and then deposited, almost certainly points to some form of ritual offering. A similar scenario is seen in the Late Bronze Age where vast amounts of bronze metalwork, particularly weapons, were deposited by competitive warrior elites (Bradley 1982).
A lot has changed since some Very Important Person sacrificed the Snettisham hoard. But some things aren't all that different, not if you view a Tesla Roadster as an elaborate piece of metalwork, being ritually sacrificed in the most expensively impressive way possible.
I can imagine some space archaeologist of the far future speculating about the status rituals of the 21st Century elite, based on the discovery an ancient high-status ground vehicle, found inexplicably drifting in the asteroid belt. I don't know how our space archaeologist will write up the find, but I kind of hope it's in a paper called Chariots of the Gods, a great title hitherto blighted by association with a very silly book.
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