bracelet
- Museum number
- 1986,0401.313
- Description
-
Silver snake bracelet. The hoop is of constant width. Behind the head there is a narrow band of plain cross-hatching, while the hoop is ornamented with punched triangles and a lozenge with dot-and-circle corners. Fine 'milled' punch-marks edge the loop. Like 1986,0401.312, the form is flattened and distorted. The bracelet is unused, and all the incised decoration is very clear and sharp. Part of a jeweller's hoard.
- Dimensions
-
Length: 187 millimetres
-
Weight: 57.50 grammes
-
Width: 18 millimetres (hoop)
-
Width: 21 millimetres (terminals)
- Curator's comments
- This hoard, found during building work in 1985, represents part of the stock of a jeweller working in the area in the second century AD. The scrap silver, ingots, the few pieces of scrap gold, and a quartz burnishing tool all indicate manufacturing. Though it has no direct connection with the great Iron Age hoards found at Snettisham, it may be evidence of a long tradition of gold- and silver-working in the area.
Because this is a manufacturer's hoard that can be closely dated, the large series of similar rings are particularly interesting. They show the range of variation possible in a single type at one time and place. There is a series of standard Roman gem-set rings, and an even larger group of snake-rings of a simple type which were mass-produced using hammer and dies. The chains, necklace-clasps and pendants belong to standard early-Roman types, but the snake-bracelets are of a stylized form best known in Britain.
Roman Britain, buried around AD 155
C. Johns, The Snettisham Roman jeweller's hoard (London, The British Museum Press, 1997)
R.A. Abdy, Romano-British coin hoards (Princes Risborough, Shire Publications, 2002)
- Location
- On display (G49/dc11)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2002-2003 25 Oct-16 Mar, Tongeren, Provinciaal Gallo-Romeins Museum, Schone Schijn (Glitter and Glamour)
- Acquisition date
- 1986
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1986,0401.313
