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Buried Treasures Unearthed
The Mildenhall treasure
This hoard is one of the most important
collections of late-Roman silver tableware from the Roman Empire.
The objects were found during ploughing near Mildenhall in Suffolk,
eastern England, in 1942 and were declared Treasure Trove in 1946.
Although no coins were found to give a reliable date, the
tableware's style and decoration is typical of the fourth
century AD. The artistic and technical quality of the silver
objects is outstanding, and though we do not know who owned them,
it was probably a person or family of considerable wealth and high
social status.
So far
little is known about the production centres for silver plate in
Britain, though we do know about the manufacturing techniques, as
for example, the decoration found on some of the Mildenhall
objects. This is achieved by
chasing
and engraving, while
niello
inlay was used to create black lines on the silver background. The
only examples of gilding are seen on the dolphin-shaped handles of
the round ladles. Much of the decoration relates to the mythology
and worship of
Bacchus,
the god of wine, a theme that was very popular on silver tableware
throughout the Roman
period.
From the collection
of the British Museum