Level 3 - Life in late Iron Age Sussex

Religion & Burial

Sacred Space

Divisions between the sacred and the secular were very indistinct throughout the pre-Roman Iron Age. Most religious activity would probably either have been fully integrated into daily life, or else have taken place among natural settings such as rivers and bogs.

However, towards the very end of the Iron Age, a small number of specialized built shrines began to appear across parts of southern Britain. The reason for their development may lie ultimately in the functions of such sites, and the perceived need for them among certain members of the native elite. The increase in political hierarchy had undoubtedly led to a desire to display visual symbols of status, and the construction of religious sites in prominent locations may have been one way of expressing this status.
The very concept may well have derived in part from Roman Gaul, where cult sites were quite common features, especially in those areas with a higher degree of socio-political complexity.

Late Iron Age shrine at Hayling Island

There is little evidence for constructed religious sites within Sussex, with the only likely example being a small concentric wooden structure located near to a later Romano-Celtic temple at Lancing Down. However, lying just over the Hampshire border at Hayling Island is perhaps the best example of an Iron Age temple in Britain. Here, a circular shrine dating to the mid 1st century BC was surrounded by a number of enclosures, and contained large quantities of votive offerings. It was quite similar to a number of sanctuaries in north-eastern Gaul, and indeed has been linked to the arrival of Commius, the renegade Gallic leader.

The Dead

Most of the British Iron Age is notoriously silent on its treatment of the dead. In the south-east especially, there is very little evidence to suggest how the majority of the population was disposed of. However, cremation cemeteries did begin to appear in the late Iron Age, and one of the most important excavated so far is at Westhampnett, in West Sussex. The burial ground consisted of 161 cremation graves and a number of pyre sites surrounding a circular cleared space. It was probably used by a number of small settlement groups from the surrounding coastal plain during the mid 1st century BC.

Late Iron Age burial urns at Westhampnett