Rights Holder: Somerset County Council
CC License:
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Unique ID: SOM-210618
Object type certainty: Certain
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status: Awaiting validation
An incomplete Early Roman copper alloy applied hook brooch of unusually strip like bow dating to AD 40 to 80. Only the bow and one wing survive, the rest is missing to old breaks. The remaining wing projects out at 90 degrees to the head and is a rectangular plate, 7.6mm long, with the broad face towards the front, the end does not bend back to hold the spring. There is an old break across the rest of the head but it appears it was flat and thin between the wings.
The bow is flat and arched in the upper part, with the remaining upper corner bent to one side. It is an unusually wide flat strip 13.9mm wide and 1.0mm thick. It is decorated with three vertical raised broad ribs wunning the remaining length, between which are broad grooves decorated with raised zigzag lines. The break at the foot is rounded and worn with none of the catchplate remaining. The reverse is undecorated.
On the front of the bow is a separate applied hook formed of a flat piece os copper alloy. The upper end and hook are missing, below the break the upper part narrows gradually and consistantly to the terminal where is expands into a quatrefoil. There the centre of th quatrefoil is a separate copper alloy rivet which is domed on front and roved flat at the back of the bow.
The remaining piece is 39.7 mm in length, 13.8 mm in width, 3.2 mm in thickness and weighs 3.42 g.
A very similar example is illustrated in Mackreth 2011, Vol 2. Plate 69, no. 6987 (Vol. 1, p. 103, 1.b. dated to AD 50-60). DEV-F972CB on this database is also similar, although thicker on the bow. In general this type is concentrated in Somerset, Dorset and Devon.
Class: Applied hook brooch
Subsequent action after recording: Returned to finder
Broad period: ROMAN
Period from: IRON AGE
Period to: ROMAN
Date from: Circa AD 40
Date to: Circa AD 80
Quantity: 1
Length: 39.7 mm
Width: 13.8 mm
Thickness: 3.2 mm
Weight: 3.42 g
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Other reference: SCC Receipt no. 019933
4 Figure: ST6719
Four figure Latitude: 50.96946452
Four figure longitude: -2.47134117
1:25K map: ST6719
1:10K map: ST61NE
Unmasked grid reference accurate to a 10 metre square.
Author | Publication Year | Title | Publication Place | Publisher | Pages | Reference | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mackreth, D.F. | 2011 | Brooches in Late Iron Age and Roman Britain | Oxford | Oxbow Books |