The Burton Agnes drum is a carved

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

cylinder dated from 3005 to 2890 BC which was found in 2015 near

Burton Agnes Burton Agnes (named after Agnes de Percy) is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the A614 road midway between Driffield and Bridlington. Local landmarks include an Elizabethan manor house, ...

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...

, England. The

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

has described it as "the most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years" and "one of the most significant ancient objects ever found on the British Isles". It was found in the grave of three children, along with a chalk ball and a bone pin. The drum was found by archaeologist Alice Beasley, working for Allen Archaeology under director Mark Allen, during a routine investigation made as part of the planning application for a

biogas Biogas is a mixture of gases, primarily consisting of methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste and food waste. It is a ...

power station to be built on the land, part of the Burton Agnes estate. She has described the find: Allen has said: It is similar to the

Folkton drums The Folkton Drums are a very rare set of three decorated chalk objects in the shape of drums or solid cylinders dating from the Neolithic period. Found in a child's grave near the village of Folkton in northern England, they are now on loan to ...

found in

Folkton Folkton is a small village and civil parish at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds and on the edge of the Vale of Pickering on an area known as Folkton Carr ( carr meaning low lands) in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England. Unti ...

, Yorkshire, about from Burton Agnes, in 1889; these have been associated with the

Lavant drum The Lavant drum is small cylindrical Neolithic chalk object excavated in 1993. It is similar to the Folkton drums, discovered over a century earlier and the Burton Agnes drum. Unlike the Folkton drums, the Lavant drum is undecorated; however, it ...

found in Lavant, Sussex in 1979. The Burton Agnes drum was displayed to the public for the first time as part of the 2022 World of Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum, alongside the three Folkton drums.

References

Stone Age sites in England Prehistoric art 2015 archaeological discoveries Archaeology of the East Riding of Yorkshire {{UK-archaeology-stub