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Description: | A cast copper alloy plate brooch in the form of an axe. The brooch is incomplete, with a large portion of the ??axe handle?? missing. The break of the handle is possibly quite a recent break. The axe head component of the brooch is a sub asymmetrical trapezoid with a concave lower edge. The outer face of the axe is decorated with a crescentic shaped cell field with yellow enamel. The field above has traces of blue enamel. The handle, which protrudes from the lower edge of the axe forms a rectangular cell which has traces of a turquoise enamel. The reverse of the axe head has two parallel perforated lugs which form the hinge of the brooch pin and spring. There are two coils of the spring curled around the axis bar. The pin is missing and was probably broken quite recently. There surface of the brooch has patches of a brown/green patina, and patches of red copper corrosion. The surface is also quite abraded. The brooch measures 14.18mm long from the handle to the upper edge of the axe head and 20.28mm wide across the upper edge of the blade. It weighs 2.6g.
The brooch is Roman, and Hattat (Hattat, R. 1989 Ancient Brooches and Other Artefacts Oxbow) illustrates a similar shaped and decorated brooch, No. 1629 and dates this to the second century. Three other axe shaped brooches have been recorded on the PAS database, two from Lincolnshire (LIN-D00147 and LIN-D004F2) and the third from Gloucestershire (GLO-C98155).
Johns (Johns, C. 1996 The Jewellery of Roman Britain UCL Press p. 178)comments that axes are a type of object associated with different cults. The axe-shaped plate brooches may be used in the same as Medieval pilgrim badges, and are therefore associated with a shrine. | Subjects: | Axe Plate | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Bolton, Angie - Portable Antiquities Scheme | Identifier: | http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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