Context (Analysis)
Attached to the catalogue card is a letter from S.E. Ellis of The British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London, S.W.7: (Departmemt of Minerology) which reads as follows: "Dear Dr. Bushnell Miss Evison has asked me to return this implement (from Soham) direct to you, with any notes I may be able to furnish. The rock is an ill sorted gritty arkose (feldspathic sandstone) with remarkably fresh orthoclase, microline (scarce) and plagioclase feldspars, and 2 micas. It contains rock fragments, the most abundent of which are of chalcedonic quartz apparently derived from silicified rhyolitic tuffs. It is a sediment of rapid accumulation derived from an area rich in acid igneous rocks, both granite and volcanic; examples of such source areas are the Lake District, Charnwood Forest and the Channel Islands, and such arkoses may be expected to occur in the Lower Carboniferous of the north west Pennines, the Upper Carboniferous of the Midlands, or the Lower Palaeozic or Devonian of western Normandy or northern Brittany, to mention some possibilities. I have been unable to match the rock in our collection but have yet to compare it with rocks in the Geological Survey and possibly the Imperial College collections. Should I find a positive match, I will let you know. The most obvious suggestion is that it is a stone from one of the East Anglian drifts, perhaps from the Carboniferous of Northern England, but possibly from Scandinavia (the 'Sparagmite') formation"
Event Date
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (Display)
Old label accompanying object reads: "Hone, knife, bone fid. Soham Cemetery. C.A.S. XXXIII pp. 152.ff" [transcribed by K. Sutton 14/6/2001]
Event Date
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Description (Physical description)
Sandstone whetstone
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Field collection)
Mixed inhumation and cremation burial site excavated in 1931 by Thomas Lethbridge, with C.S. Leaf and C.F. Tebbutt. The site was discovered in May 1931 when a trench for an electric cable to the Soham and Fordham water tower disturbed a burial (see Lethbridge 1933).
Event Date 5/1931
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (References)
Lethbridge, T.C. (1933). 'Anglo-Saxon Burials at Soham, Cambridgeshire'. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, vol. 33. pp 152-163, Fig. 1.2
Event Date 1933
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (References)
Evison, V.I. (1975). 'Pagan Saxon Whetstones'. The Antiquaries Journal, vol. LV(1)
Event Date 1975
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Description (Physical description)
Sandstone whetstone or rubber. Parallel long sides with rounded short sides. Groove in one long face.
Event Date 13/2/2025
Author: Lily Pencliffe