by Tess Machling
Hello again folks! Now we get to the fun stuff...the ideas I'm currently playing with as to how and why these five torcs (or torc group in the case of Alrewas) might have been deposited where they were. As I see it, there's three main options...and an equally likely, or perhaps even more likely, fourth: …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 9 Theories"
Here we are again, and in this blog I'll be trying to make the case that, although there may be a localised concentration of torcs in the Tamworth region, I do not believe this to be indicative of a local manufacturing centre and - in later blogs - I'll be suggesting that the pattern of …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 8 Two torcs do not a ‘group’ make"
Hello everyone and welcome back! In this blog I want to dig a little deeper into the current theories about torcs that have been found in Staffordshire. I need to do this now because I do not believe the current theory - of two distinct styles of torcs, one from East Anglia and one from …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 7 Two ‘groups’ and a knotty problem"
Welcome back! Today is the fifth, and final, torc in this rather intriguing little collection. To be honest, I've saved the best until last as this really is a beauty: the Needwood Forest torc. The Needwood Forest torc (Image © The Royal Collection & the Trustees of the British Museum) As with Glascote, I have spent a …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 6 Needwood Forest"
First things first: from the last blog it seems we all want to live in Torc Avenue! Several folks thought we should have more artefact themed roads, which I couldn't agree with more. Anyone know of any others? But back to the torcs and this time I have an apology to make: I assumed that …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 5 Middleton Hall"
Firstly, a bit of a catch up! Thank you to the 150+ folks who've read the blogs so far, and to those who've subscribed to read more (remember to hit 'Subscribe' at the bottom of the page, if you want to be one of them). A couple of comments from the Shenstone blog have come …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 4 Glascote"
Well, here we are again, folks. I'll add a few updates from the previous two blogs first. As regards pronouncing 'Alrewas': Several Staffordshire people have put forward a variety of pronunciations, so I'm still not much the wiser (although fascinated by all the different ways!). Some suggest you pronounce it as it's written, a few …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 3 Shenstone"
Whenever I start a new piece of work, there's always something that sets me off on the path of discovery, the thing that makes me think, 'Oooo! That's interesting, I wonder if...?'. In the case of this project it was a cluster of torc discoveries in a small area of Staffordshire that I noticed when …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 2 Alrewas"
I love to share torc research, and any of you who follow me on social media will know that my feeds are full of snippets, thoughts and ponderings - some turn out to be dead ends, some get noted for later use and some lead to fully-fledged theories and papers (see HERE for our work …
Continue reading "The Staffordshire Torc Odyssey: 1 The idea"
The Big Book of Torcs 