terret
- Museum number
- 1846,0322.88
- Description
-
Copper alloy terret with glass 'enamel'.
Cast bronze ring with parallel-sided attachment bar set on edge between two circular domed stops; around each of the stops there is a groove which has been worn away at the top. Symmetrically disposed around the outer edge of the ring and set parallel thereto are three clusters of four semi-circular wings. Close to the edge on the underside of each sideways projecting wing there is an incised groove. The inner faces of each inner pair of wings are embellished with curving-sided triangular insets filled with red glass; between the inner wings there is a low ridge. The ring itself has triangular insets filled with red glass.
- Production date
- 50 - 150 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 56 millimetres
-
Width: 70 millimetres
- Curator's comments
-
The find also included three other identical terrets which differ only in size (1846,0322.90-1 & 102).
-
From a hoard of metal objects in a pit lined with burnt clay found by chance in ploughing a field in June 1800 near the top of the Polden Hills somewhere near Bridgewater (Harford 1803: 90-1). Harford wrote: "the hoard was ploughed up near the top of Polden Hill near Bridgewater. Polden hill is an eminence on one side of Kings Sedgemoor, a little above the village of Edington, where are evident remains of a Roman station."
According to W.A. Seaby (quoted in C. Fox 1952: 54), the hoard was probably found on Knowle Hill in Bawdrip parish; the source of Seaby's information is not cited, but it may be related to two letters sent to the British Museum (from R. Rainbird Clarke on 26th May 1938 and H.S.L. Dewar on 11th March 1949) which give this location. Mansel Spratling (quoted in Brailsford 1975, 222) has suggested that this could be a confusion arising from the fact that there is a terret from Knowle Hill in Taunton Museum. This terret is very different to the Polden Hill group, and is much more extensively mineralised. It may be safest (as Brailsford has argued) to dismiss the Bawdrip location and accept the original location: 'a little above the village of Edington'.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition notes
- In sale on March 23rd 1846
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1846,0322.88