Trip to Cardiff!

November 29th, 2010 by Frances McIntosh

On Monday last week I visited National Museums and Galleries Wales in Cardiff. With me I took two items I have mentioned previously on my blog the Iron Age bracelet/torc fragment (DUR-F3F8C4) and the Medieval mace head (DUR-5ACBE0).

I was meeting Mary Davies (Archaeological Conservator) and Adam Gwilt (Curator of Later Prehistory). They had both kindly agreed to give up some of their time to help me find out more about these two very interesting items. The museum in Cardiff has a great library and good scientific facilities for testing small finds, both of which are extremely useful when researching slightly unusual or rare objects.

Mary first put both items into the XRF machine (this stands for X-ray Flouresence and works by shooting X-rays at the item, depending on the chemical make-up of the object, a different spectrum is bounced back at the sensor). This was a portable XRF and so was quick and easy,  it connected straight to a laptop and so allowed us to get easy to read graphs straight away. This method is qualitative only as it does not give exact amounts of each element but it does show the general proportions, i.e. in a copper alloy object the vast majority of the metal will be copper with small additions of tin, zinc, lead or other elements.

Next we went over the Archaeology Department at the University where they have an SEM machine.  This is a special type of microscope, (a Scanning Electron Microscope), which means we can look at a tiny sample of an object at extremely high magnification.  Electrons are shot at the sample and those which bounce back are again measured by the sensor and we can tell how much of each element is present (it is quantitative). Again the handy programme allowed us to get a graph of the elements and a table with the numbers.

Unfortunately the graphs and tables are stored in an excel file and I can;t get them onto my blog- however I will summarise the results below.

The Iron Age bracelet- was around 93% copper with c.6% tin with traces of lead, antimony and arsenic. This makes it a bronze and is a not unexpected alloy for this period.

The Medieval mace head- was around 83% copper, 8% tin and 5% lead with traces of other elements. The reason we tested this item was to help with the debate over whether these are Medieval or Bronze Age. Different alloys were used in different periods and so getting these items tested adds another element to our understanding of them. Unfortunately this alloy is not a typical Medieval alloy, although Mary did say it was more like Medieval alloys than Bronze Age so at least we have some tentative proof! The way forward with these items is to get more tested as it may turn out they were made with similar alloys (as I showed with my Wirral brooches, and others have shown with testing of other artefact types).

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Further Alloy Analysis on the Wirral brooches

August 2nd, 2010 by Frances McIntosh

Further Alloy Analysis on the Wirral brooches

If you click onto the link above I have a short update on the Wirral brooch project. I was lucky enough to get some funding from Historic Scotland to pay for Dr. Matthew Ponting’s travel and time to come up to Edinburgh and do some analysis on the Scottish sub-group of the Wirral brooches.

We were testing these to see if their alloys were the same as the brooches we had tested from the core area of the distribution. They are stylistically the same yet geographically very far away so I was hoping that the alloy composition would help us answer the question of whether the Scottish sub-group was made in Scotland, or around the Wirral.

My dissertation is almost finished and so more will follow on my study of these brooches soon!

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First Results for Wirral brooches

September 3rd, 2008 by Frances McIntosh

This is a very exciting week for me as Matthew Ponting has analysed the first set of brooch samples and so we now have some results. He has sampled 19 brooches so far along with 4 fragments of what we think are mis-cast brooches (and were hoping were mis-cast Wirral brooches!) using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy which allows the amount of each element in the alloy to be identified. The results so far are very encouraging for the project.

The aim of looking at the Wirral brooches more closely was to try and identify a possible location of manufacture through their distribution and the alloy composition analysis. What we hoped was that all the brooches would have the same alloy composition, suggesting that they were made in the same place or by the same person. Of the 19 brooches tested, 18 are similar enough to say they are all a leaded bronze and constitute a group. This is really good as it adds further weight to the thought that these were all made by one person/workshop (whether static or itinerant).

The one brooch which does not match is LVPL-059BC2. This has a very low lead content and cannot be said to be within the same group as the other 18. At first this could be a problem as it means not all the brooches are fitting the pattern. However Matthew and I then took the brooch out of the box and saw it was a variant! This was cause for many smiles and relieved sighs. Our idea is still on course. The only brooch so far with a different alloy composition is one which stylistically is not a typical Wirral brooch.  The picture below shows that it shares some characeteristics with a typical Wirral brooch (stepped head, strong profile, small boss on the knee) but that it also has some different characteristics- mainly the bow decoration which is triangular as opposed to the usual linear panels.

The 4 waste fragments which were tested were a different composition again and so suggest that something completely different was being made on this site, not the Wirral brooches, even though Wirral brooches have been found in the same field as these waste pieces. Below is a diagram which Matthew created to show the results of the testing on one page with all 3 groups showing (typical Wirral, the variant and the 4 fragments). It is based on the formula Bayley and Butcher used when they tested the thousands of Roman brooches from Richborough and is a great way to easily and quickly be able to see groupings.

Wirral brooch results

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Coin Data from South Cheshire

August 12th, 2008 by Frances McIntosh

As mentioned previously, a large assemblage of coins from South Cheshire was put onto the database recently which added hugely to our data for this county. I have converted these coins into Reece periods to analyse them. The Roman period is split into Reece periods for coins(see http://www.finds.org.uk/romancoins/reece.php for more information). Using these periods and the formula Richard Reece devised, allows us to compare coin data from different sites and areas. This is the type of work Philippa Walton is doing for the whole of England for her Phd which is showing very interesting results already.

Reece looked at many sites across England and worked out an average site coin loss pattern. This is what he would expect from a Roman site in England. Because of the way the formula works you can compare sites with different numbers of coins as it is the percentage of each period which is the important thing. The Reece period data for the area in South Cheshire seems to pretty well match Richard Reece’s British mean.

This was not expected as David Shotter has done a lot of work on the Roman coins in the North West of England and the sites here do not match Reece’s norm. Sam Moorhead has suggested that the South Cheshire coins could have a different pattern as the economy in that area was different to other parts of the North West. It is quite close to Shropshire which has the sites of Wroxeter and Whitchurch (Roman Mediolanum) which have coin loss patterns more similar to Reece’s British mean. it could mean therefore that people in this area were linked more to this area rather than Chester and other Cheshire sites. This is very interesting as it shows that even within one county (Cheshire) there is variation in periods of activity. It is a reminder that the boundaries we work with today are often meaningless when looking at past activity.

Below are the graphs which show the pattern of coin loss by Reece period, first from the South Cheshire data and second, Reece’s British mean. The patterns can be compared and the similarities in the rise/fall of periods can be seen.

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Correction to 'New roman coin in Cheshire'

August 12th, 2008 by Frances McIntosh

David Shotter is  Roman coin expert based in Lancashire who keeps a catlogue of all Roman coins found in the North West of England has upturned the ID on LVPL-F139A5. He has corrected the ID from a quadrans to a copper alloy core of a dopy of a denarius of Antoninus Pius (138-161) minted in Rome, 145-161 AD.

This shows how tricky coins can be, especially when people in the past were so good at making copies. The forgers did such a good job of this coin that it was mistaken for a legal copy. It should have had a surface plating of silver to complete the coin and allow it to pass as a denarius but at a much lower cost to the makers. However, Sam Moorhead says

There is no evidence of any plating on the piece. It might be that it was never in fact plated’. This added to the confusion with the ID as usually plated copies will retain some of the plating, giving the clue as to their identity.

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Local Find Donated to Museum

July 23rd, 2008 by Frances McIntosh

A detectorist has recently donated a really interesting find to National Museums Liverpool. It was found in the Hale area of Cheshire which is just outside Liverpool. It’s locality makes it more important as north of the River Mersey finds are not abundant- especially finds as nice as this one. This find will hopefully go into the new Museum of Liverpool which is planned to open in 2010

The find is a face mount, from furniture or a vessel. It is Roman in date but has Celtic influences in it’s design. It is recorded on the database as LVPL-1DBDD5. It is a female face, representing Medusa, one of the Gorgons, and the only one who was mortal. Her gaze could turn whoever she looked upon to stone. There is a particular myth in which Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden. She desecrated Athena’s temple by lying there with Poseidon. Outraged, Athena turned Medusa’s hair into living snakes. Medusa is represented as a fierce female nearly always with a frontal rather than a profile head. She was often used as an apotropaic amulet.

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Exciting New Coin from Cheshire!!

July 17th, 2008 by Frances McIntosh

As promised here are more details about the Quadrans which was recorded with me from Cheshire. I have been really lucky as this is my 2nd one of these in less than 18 months (there are less than 10 on the PAS database I think).

This one is a Quadrans of Antoninus Pius (138-161), minted in Rome, 140-144 AD. It seems to be an unpublished variety of quadrans which makes it an even more important find. As well as being a rare denomination of coin, it could be unique! And this is a coin which was in a bag with c.100 other Roman ‘grots’

The coin is recorded as LVPL-F139A5

Obverse- Laureate head right

Reverse- Two clasped hands, holding cauceus and two corn ears

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Interesting Roman find from North Yorkshire

July 17th, 2008 by Frances McIntosh

This is a really nice case of where an archaeologist spotted a find on UKDFD and, realising it was an important find, asked the detectorist to show it to his local FLO so they could record it. They promptly did this and now we have another really interesting find recorded for all to see.

It is a copper alloy Roman tripod mount. 2 of these have previously been recorded on the PAS database (LIN-1632D1 and YORYM-EC06D2) but both of these are very different in style to the one brought into me at Manchester. They both depict Romanised gods (Bacchus and possibly Harpocrates respectively). The North Yorkshire one (recorded as LVPL-CB8B04) does not seem to be representative of anyone in particular and the design style used on it is much more reminiscent of Celtic art than the more fancy Roman design on the other 2.

This is not to say it is cruder- just that it is different. It is probably more interesting than the other two because of its design. It shows a Roman object (the tripod) was not only being used by British people but that they were making this object and altering it to fit into their art styles. These are not common finds in

Britain and this appears to be the first in this style to be found. There are other tripod mounts known from excavations both in Britain and from the continent (Belgium and Germany) but these all seem to be similar in style to the other two mounts recorded on the database.

This shows just how important it is that we all collaborate to record finds- without the metal detectorist we would not have been shown this find and now have the information. In turn the metal detectorist now knows much more about his object than before.

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Sam Moorhead visits the NW

June 23rd, 2008 by Frances McIntosh

Last week Sam Moorhead, the Roman coins advisor for the PAS visited me to spend 2 days identifiying a large assemblage of Roman coins from South Cheshire (and other bits and pieces I saved up as he is so quick at them!). Prior to last week there were 240 Roman coins on the database from Cheshire, on Thursday we identified c.120 more which means we added another 50% again to the coins known from that county. This is particularly useful at the moment as Philippa Walton is doing her Phd looking at the Roman coin data of the PAS.

Most of the coins Sam and I ID’ed are what detectorists would generally regard as ‘grot’ and would perhaps not note where they were found and often don’t record them. However last weeks activity has shown how important recording your ‘grot’ is. In the bag of the coins from Cheshire, only c.5 could not be assigned to a Reece period (the important thing when analysing Roman coin data) and some of the coins were actually really rare and interesting. They aren’t on the database yet but once they go on I will put details up here. Just to whet your appetite, Sam is fairly sure that one of the coins is an unpublished variety!!

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Wirral Brooch Updates

June 6th, 2008 by Frances McIntosh

The project is really getting moving now. Matthew Ponting at Liverpool University has sampled c.15 brooches and I have just taken up another 8.  He has tested 8 of the samples already taken and I am currently waiting for information on these.

Last week he went to the British Museum to take a sample of the only surviving Wirral brooch of the 8 found at the site of Meols on the Wirral coastline. The site is very interesting from many aspects (see the recent publication- Meols. The Archaeology of the North Wirral coast by Egan, Griffiths and Philpott) but I am interested in the Wirral brooches. Out of the 80 brooches found along the beach over the years, 7 of them were Wirral types. this is almost 10% of the assemblage. When you think of how many Roman brooches that are found regularly by metal dectorists and archaeologists (there are c.1300 on the PAS database from the North of England alone), and then look at the fact that only 80 Wirral brooches in total are known about so far, they represent a tiny proportion of Roman brooches, even in the North where they orginate (we think).

Comparing this with the Meols numbers makes them really stand out. This was a fairly important port in Roman times and there were probably a lot of people coming and going. Nearly 10% of brooches lost were Wirral types, this suggests that they were well represented in what was being worn at that time. I think that this is further proof that the source of the Wirral brooches is actually on the Wirral as they were obviously much more popular here than anywhere else. Even though they are found in a wider area than just the Wirral, it is never in such high concentrations.

We are also starting to notice Wirral variants as more detectorists and FLO’s are recognising what to look out for. What this space for pictures and more information on some of these.

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