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A pair of inscribed Anglo-Saxon hooked tags from the Rome (Forum) 1883 hoard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

James Graham-Campbell
Affiliation:
University College London
Elisabeth Okasha
Affiliation:
University College, Cork
Michael Metcalf
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Extract

The importance of the hoard found in the excavations in the Forum at Rome in 1883, just outside the the House of the Vestal Virgins, has long been recognized by Anglo-Saxon numismatists, for it is the largest recorded source for the coinage of Æthelstan and Edmund. Archaeologists, art-historians and epigraphers have, however, failed to appreciate the significance for Anglo-Saxon studies of the pair of silver tags found with the coins (pl. VIII), bearing between them the name of Pope Marinus, despite their having been illustrated (in uncleaned condition) by Christopher Blunt in his 1974 account of the hoard. The tags themselves are described and discussed here by Dr James Graham-Campbell and their inscriptions by Dr Elisabeth Okasha, both working from photographs kindly made available to us by Dottoressa Silvana Balbi de Caro, of the Museo Nazionale in Rome, through the agency of Dr Michael Metcalf.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 Blunt, C.E., ‘The Coinage of Athelstan, 924–939: a Survey’, BNJ 42 (1974), 35158Google Scholar, at 141–55 (Appendix 1: ‘The Forum Hoard, Found in Excavations near the House of the Vestal Virgins 1883’); the tags are illustrated (enlarged) on p. 141, where they are identified wrongly as bronze ‘fibulae’. The original account of the hoard was by De Rossi, G.B., D'un tesoro di monete anglo-sassone trovato nell' Atrio delle Vestali (Rome, 1884)Google Scholar, and in English as A Hoard of Anglo-Saxon Coins Found in Rome’, N Chron 3rd ser. 4 (1884), 225–55Google Scholar. See also Blunt, C. E., ‘Anglo-Saxon Coins Found in Italy’, Anglo-Saxon Monetary History: Essays in Memory of Michael Dolley, ed. Blackburn, M. A. S. (Leicester, 1986), pp. 159–69Google Scholar, at 161 (Hoard No. 4).

2 Dr M. Metcalf has completed a full publication of the hoard, with illustrations of all the coins, for the Bollettino di Numismatica, to which the photographs of the tags belong and with whose permission they are published here (pl. VIII).

3 Graham-Campbell, J., ‘Some New and Neglected Finds of 9th-Century Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork’, MA 26 (1982), 144–51Google Scholar, at 144–5, fig. 2.2 and pl. ivb.

4 For a general discussion of hooked tags, see D.A. Hinton, ‘Hooked Tags’, in Biddle, M., Artefacts from Medieval Winchester, pt 2: Object and Economy in Medieval Winchester, 2 vols., Winchester Stud. 7.ii (Oxford, 1990) II, 548–52Google Scholar, with particular reference to examples found at Winchester.

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6 ibid. pl. xi, no. 2.

7 ibid. pl. xii, no. 9.

8 ibid. p. 178, pl. xxxii, nos. 86 and 87.

9 I am most grateful to Ralf Weichmann (Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschicte der Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel) for information on the List hoard in advance of the completion of his Ph.D. thesis, entitled ‘Edelmetalldepots der Wikingerzeit in Schleswig-Holstein’.

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