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Description: | Probably a mount (or stud) of copper alloy. It is circular with four lugs and is decorated with enamel and millefiori. Around half of the enamel and millefiori remains although most of it is discoloured to a green or almost completely corroded to black. Otherwise it is complete. It measures 34mm in diameter and weighs 7.21mm.
The four circular lugs have a maximum diameter of 7mm, are evenly spaced around the circumference of the mount and are filled with discoloured enamel. The circular body of the mount is 1.5mm thick, has a diameter of 22mm and is split into three concentric rings. The outer ring is filled with chequer-board millefiori. There may also have been small circles of copper alloy protruding this decoration. These are the same colour as the black corroded enamel, but around one spot the chequer-board pattern is smudged. The second ring is filled with 10 blocks of millefiori, not separated into fields with copper alloy strips. One complete, and two half blocks survive with their original colouring. They are blue with an eight white petalled flower with a yellow centre outlined in red. These intact blocks are separated by discoloured or degraded blocks. They were possibly of a different composition and colour, having degraded at a different rate but like the surviving blocks, also had a flower motif. In one block three petals and half the centre can be seen. The central area of the brooch is concave with only a small amount of dark brown/black residue and possibly held a setting.
The reverse is flat with a central integral lug roughly square in diameter (3x3mm) and only 4mm long. Over much of the back is a red brown residue, which may be the remains of solder or glue.
Such studs may have been attached to leather straps or metal work (see for example 49 on pg 422 (Hattatt 1989)), although their short shanks would presumably have necessitated an additional method of attachment.
No direct parallels have been found. Of the enamelled studs found at Colchester 3218 (Crummy 1983) has two concetric rings, one af which contains spots of enamel, thought to be a continental technique. Unfortuntely it was found in an unstratified context. A decorative enamelled stud was found at Chirton, Wiltshire WILT-1CF783, again with concentric ring decoration. Neither of these these studs have the enamelled lugs around the circumference, but both have a short integral lug (6mm long) for attachment, only slightly longer than this example.
The mount closely resembles the plate brooches of the 2nd-3rd centuries, such as objects 123, 124 and 1048 in Hattatt (1989). Millefiori (small polychrome patterns in glass enamel) was used in these brooches the end of the second to early 3rd centuries (Bayley and Butcher 2004, pp.176-8). Thus a date of c. 200AD is suggested. During the Roman period, it is thought that the technique was carried out on the continent and carried out in Britain only after the Roman withdrawal (Bayley and Butcher 2004, pp. 213). | Format: | text/html | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ | Publisher: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Rights holder: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Subjects: | archaeology | Temporal: | 200 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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