What it is: Bronze facing of a shield
When it was made: Between 350 and 50 B.C.
According to the British Museum, which acquired the shield directly from the construction worker who found it nearly 170 years ago, the weapon is made of several pieces of sheet bronze fastened together with rivets. The shield is about 30.6 inches (77.7 centimeters) long and 14 inches (35.7 cm) wide, and it weighs roughly 7.5 pounds (3.4 kilograms). Originally, the thin bronze shield facing would have been affixed to a wooden or leather base to create a substantial shield, but no trace of the underlying material has survived.
Palmettes and interlocking S-shaped motifs adorn the shield, and there are 27 circular decorations filled with red glass enamel and bronze in the shape of swastikas, which were symbols of good luck in ancient Celtic culture. These ornaments could also represent eyes staring back at an enemy, archaeologist Sophia Adams, a curator at the British Museum, has suggested.
Because there's no evidence of damage to the shield, it was probably never used in battle, according to Adams. Rather, the shield could have been thrown into the Thames as a ritual sacrifice to the river or to an important ancestor.
The Battersea Shield is the "most famous object ever to be found in the Thames," archaeologist Kate Sumnall, a curator at the London Museum, said in the video. As such, it has become a potent symbol of ancient Britain and has been featured on items as diverse as postage stamps, cigarette boxes and CD cases.
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