King's Meadows, horse bit

Iron horse-bit, only a fragment of one side surviving. Maximum length 133 mm. Heslop suggests that the metalwork at King's Meadows was a deliberate votive deposition. The River Tyne was a major arterial route inland and a possible boundary between tribal groupings, and appears to have been the focus of ceremonial activity by communities gathering here from considerable distances. There is a recurring pattern in the Bronze Age for metalwork deposition in watery places. The concentration of objects around the small island of King's Meadows has parallels at Runnymede on the Thames.