BROOCH

A corroded and now incomplete cast copper-alloy Roman brooch of the Hod Hill type, Hattatt's Class B (with side knobs/lugs). At the head is the open cylinder (W.: 12.5mm); the axis bar is missing along with the pin. Below the open cylinder the head tapers to a width of 6.2mm. The main body of the brooch is rectangular in shape and would have had a pair of knobs, one either side, lower; one has broken off; the other extends for c. 7.2mm. The upper surface of the bow is decorated three longitudinal grooves and four corresponding ridges. Within the central groove is a raised wiggly line. Grooving appears to continue in the extant side knob. Below the main body is a junction element before the foot begins. It consists of pair of grooves and concomitant ridges. The foot is a truncated lozenge shape, with the widest point (6.75mm) fairly central but unaligned. The brooch terminates in a foot knob, formed of a transverse ridge. The lower surface is undecorated and features a slightly abraded sub-triangular catchplate, c. 22.9mm in length, running from the junction element to the foot knob. In profile the brooch has a relatively straight body, only bending downwards at the head at an angle of around forty-five degrees. The foot and the head both retain traces of the tinning which would have covered the whole of the upper surface. Otherwise, the brooch has corroded to a red-brown colour with a dusting of light green corrosion product; some mid-green patina survives on the lower surface of the bow. Hattatt (1982, 89) describes this Class B of Hod Hill brooches as a common military type.