Rights Holder: St. Albans District Council
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Unique ID: BH-403BBE
Object type certainty: Certain
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status: Published
A Roman copper-alloy umbonate plate brooch.
The upper surface of the oval, domed brooch has a circular cell at its centre; this is surrounded by two concentric rings of triangular cells, which point towards the centre and retain most of their insets. All of the outer cells have blue settings; the inner ring has two blue settings, two red and two that are empty. A circumferential groove and outer rim surround the domed centre of the brooch, there is a right-angled lug projecting from the centre of the right- and left-hand sides, a larger such lug at the base and a damaged chain loop at the apex. On the reverse, the two right-angled hinge tabs extend backwards from the base of the chain loop, with a remnant of the pin between them. The catchplate is located behind the basal lug and has a rolled outer side. The pin would originally have straddled the hollow central area at the back of the plate.
Height: 32.6mm; width: 27.1mm; depth: 12mm. Weight: 5.76g.
Two similar brooches were found at Richborough, where they were dated to the 1st century AD (Bayley and Butcher 2004: fig. 99, nos. 382 and 383/p. 173). The generally accepted date range for these brooches, however, is 2nd to mid 3rd century AD.
Class: Umbonate plate
Subsequent action after recording: Returned to finder
Broad period: ROMAN
Period from: ROMAN
Period to: ROMAN
Date from: Circa AD 100
Date to: Circa AD 250
Quantity: 1
Height: 32.6 mm
Width: 27.1 mm
Weight: 5.76 g
Date(s) of discovery: Sunday 22nd February 2015
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Other reference: Ver 15/31 - 11
Primary material: Copper alloy
Completeness: Incomplete
Surface Treatment: Inlaid with enamel
Grid reference source: From finder
Unmasked grid reference accurate to a 100 metre square.
Author | Publication Year | Title | Publication Place | Publisher | Pages | Reference | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bayley, J. and Butcher, S. | 2004 | Roman Brooches in Britain: A Technological and Typological Study Based on the Richborough Collection | London | The Society of Antiquaries |