BROOCH

Head and upper part of the bow of a Roman cast copper-alloy initial T-shaped brooch with hinged pin dating to c. AD 60-100. The lower part of the bow, foot and most of the pin of the brooch are missing to worn breaks. The brooch head has open-ended cylindrical wings, 26.8mm wide, containing an axis bar for the hinge. Both are complete and nearly closed at the end but one has small amounts of a white substance visible in the end. The wings are each decorated with a single transverse incised line near the end. There is a large transverse slot through the centre of the underside of the head, between the wings, where the pin hinges. The flat triangular head of the copper alloy pin remains in this slot on the axis bar.

The bow is D shaped in section with a flat back and shallowly convex front. It rises at about 60 degrees to the head before curving over c.60 degrees in the upper part of the bow, before the break in a shallow curve. The lower part of the bow is bent up just before the break probably the result of damage. The bow tapers in width and thickness gradually but consistently from the head to the worn break. The upper part is decorated with a pair of moulded raised ribs running down the length from the head to just before the break where they appear to end in a pair of incised transverse lines. Tthere are slight projecting kops in the angle between the side of the bow and the wings on each side. The brooch fragment is 27.4mm long, 12.9mm thick and weighs 6.22 grams.

Bailey and Butcher (2004:158) illustrate similar pieces although with a range of different moulded decoration and suggest a Flavian or slightly earlier date. They suggest T-shaped brooches are very variable in the decoration on their bows and are mainly South Western in distribution. Mackreth (2011, p.94, pl.62) illustrates a similar example, no.2715 placed in his group 11b.