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Description: | A cast copper-alloy zoomorphic Roman plate brooch in the form of a bird (duck), incomplete having suffered various abrasions and having lost its pin. The brooches has a flat body of triangular form with rounded corners. This is because the bird has its wings folded to the body. The pointed end of the triangular body is extended into an inverted triangular tail. One of the corners and centre of the tail are abraded such that it is difficult to identify whether there was a chain loop that protuded from the centre as with similar examples; there is no evidence of one. At the centre of the wide end of the triangular body a rounded neck protrudes at a right angle, the bird's neck and head extend to a height of 9.8mm. However, the head is abraded at the top, probably broken at a perforation that represented the duck's eye. The wide edge of the triangular body is cusped, with the front of each wing rounded.The upper surface of the brooch is decorated in a number of ways. The tail features three triangular cells arranged in an alternating line to fill the field. Two orange enamelled cells flank one in black, as with an example recorded on this database, ref. NMS-E1A9D6. The outer side of one of the wings is heavily abraded but enough remains to show, like the complete wing it featured a long cell, filling the entire wing with just a raised border. The cell is the same shape as the wing: rounded at the front and tapering at the other end. This cell is divided into alternating squares of enamel, now red and light green. Running longitudinally along the back of the bird's body is a 'spine' as an elongated triangle delineated by converging grooves. The 'spine' may have been decorated with a strip of alternating cells in the same colours as those on the tail (cf. NMS-E1A9D6), though nothing is apparent due to corrosion. The grooves to each side of the 'spine' are filled with the remnants of a white-metal coating (tinning?), as are similar grooves that delineate the wings; the raised strips between these grooves are corroded and apparently plain. Tinning extends also up the sides of the bird's neck. The tail is divided from the body by a pair of transverse grooves with a ridge in between. Again, by comparison with NMS-E1A9D6 the ridge may have been knurled, but this is no longer clear due to corrosion. The grooves contain the remains of tinning.On the plain lower surface, at the junction of tail and body, is a double semicircular perforated lug for the (now missing) hinged pin. At the extreme other end of the body the catch-plate has been abraded to barely a vestige.Examples where the wings are folded to the body (as opposed to in flight) would appear to be relatively rare: see for example Mackreth 2011, 129; no. 12692, though NMS-E1A9D6 provides a close parallel in decoration and form (though of larger module).
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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