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Description: | Iron Age La Tene IBb type brooch dating to the 4th century BC. The brooch is complete apart from a small break in the spring. The head has a spring and pin cast as one piece with the brooch; it is 8.6mm wide. The spring was wound 4 times around a bar made of a separate piece of copper alloy wire; two coils to the left of the bow then an external chord above the head leading to two coils on the right. The outer coil on the right is 50% missing from old breaks. The pin is complete and circular in section, tapering gradually to the point where there is slight damage and a bend. The head rises at c.70 degrees from the spring before levelling with a relatively angular corner to form the main part of the bow. The bow is formed of a wide, oval, flat plate with a slight thickened bar running down the centre on the reverse. The face has nine circular perforations, four down each side and one in the centre which may have held ornaments. Several of the perforations have broken through the edge and it is possible the two closest to the head were always semicircular. Below the oval plate the bow bends down at 90 degrees (at which point it is oval in cross section) and then out at 90 degrees to form the foot. The foot runs along parallel to the bow with a widened catchplate to the right which is curved up 180 degrees. Beyond the catchplate the foot curves up and over 180 degrees terminating in a broad, flat trefoil with a circular piercing in the centre of each 'leaf'. One of the side leaves is bent down due to damage. It is 39.1mm long, 13.3mm wide at the widest point and weighs 4.45 grams.While the foot return terminal with its openwork trefoil foot can be paralleled by other British examples (e.g. Hattatt, R. (1989) Ancient Brooches and other Artefacts Oxford: Oxbow, No.1446 p13-15) its flattened bow with openwork circles around the edge and in the centre appears, from preliminary searches, to be unique in Britain and suggests the brooch is likely to be of Continental origin.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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