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Romano-British Disc-brooches derived from Hadrianic Coin-types

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Extract

It is only rarely that Romano-British brooches can be dated with the precision possible in the case of coins, or even of decorated Samian ware; their chronology is, more often than not, based on stylistic arguments, and even where stratigraphic evidence of date is available, the possibility of “survival” is a serious impediment to the formation of definite conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1941

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References

page 1 note 1 Winbolt, S. E. and Goodchild, R. G., ‘A Roman Villa at Lickfold, Wiggonholt’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, lxxviii (1937), pp. 1336Google Scholar. A second report is in preparation.

page 1 note 2 E. T. Leeds, Celtic Ornament, pp. 139, 142; R. G. Collingwood, Archaeology of Roman Britain, fig. 64, 105.

page 2 note 1 For dating evidence, based mainly on the coins, see the 1937 Report, op. cit., pp. 26 ff.

page 2 note 2 Described briefly in the 1924 Excavation Report, Wilts. Archaeological Magazine, xliii, 181, pl. 11, A, B, and c. Detailed analysis in Antiq. Journ. xi (1931), pp. 160–1Google Scholar; whence description in Devizes Museum Catalogue, Part II (1934), p. 128Google Scholar, fig. 23.

page 3 note 1 The writer had hoped that Professor Collingwood would contribute his own views on the subject of these disc-brooches to this paper, but this hope was frustrated by Mr. Collingwood's recent illness and his abandonment of Romano-British studies.

page 3 note 2 Lowther, A. W. G., ‘Excavations at Verulamium in 1934’, Antiq. Journ. xvii (1937). p. 46Google Scholar, fig. 7, 1.

page 4 note 1 The British Museum register number of this brooch is 66, 9–21, 1, and it is figured in the Westmorland volume of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (p. xxxix, A 10), where it is incorrectly described as from Brough.

page 4 note 2 An unpublished brooch in the museum at Chedworth Roman Villa, Glos. (National Trust Guide to the Villa, 1937, p. 10, no. 102), is similar in some respects to the brooches described in this paper, but it does not appear to belong to the same series.

page 6 note 1 This feature is paralleled on the Uffington White Horse and the Aylesford Bucket, and seems to be typical of Celtic art. See Antiquity, v (1931), pp. 3746Google Scholar.

page 7 note 1 Mattingly, H., Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, iii (London, 1936), pl. 93Google Scholar, nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, and 12.

page 7 note 2 For example, the ‘Exercitus Syriacus’ type, Mattingly, op. cit., pl. 93, no. 13. The soldiers on this coin reverse are very similar to those portrayed on the brooches.

page 8 note 1 Mattingly, op. cit., pl. 95, nos. 2, 5, and 7 (to l.); 4 and 6 (to r.). Of these numbers, only 6 and 7 show the figure viewed centrally in front of the horse, and these two alone would be strict prototypes. It is to be noted that both ‘Adlocutio’ and ‘Mauretania’ types have variants to l. as well as to r., and though the plates of the brooches show the design to r., they may well have been copied from originals to l.

page 8 note 2 This kneeling figure may not, however, be entirely the result of a whim on the part of the brooch-designer, as its posture is very reminiscent of the kneeling provincials depicted on the Hadrianic ‘Restitutor’ provincial coin issues (Mattingly, op. cit., pl. 96, nos. 1–14).