Newstand necklace

Necklace found at Newstead, Roxburghshire,

By Marion le Red

marionred@gmail.com

Barony of Windmasters’ Hill

Overview:

I tried to reproduction of the necklace found at the site of a Roman fort called Trimontium in Newstead, Roxburghshire, Scotland. The necklace is dated between 80 and 180 AD. The Romans occupied the fort for two time periods, 80 – 105 AD and 140 –180 AD. The necklace is comprised of a chain commonly called a Sailor’s chain, a wheel pendant that was found near the necklace, a crescent pendant, and a hook. Though the National Museums of Scotland reconstructed the piece as one piece it was not found as one piece. The wheel was found near the necklace but was evident from the bar length on the clasp that the wheel may have been part of the necklace. The necklace could have been comprised of object that were found. There are more crescent charms in this dig besides the one on the necklace. The crescent and wheel are symbols for the moon and the sun they to ward off evil and promote good luck.

Artifact Mine

I learned a lot by doing this piece and have many ideas on how to do it better. The first thing I learned is regardless of the cost of materials order enough material for two tries. Since I only purchased enough of the 14-gauge silver for he clasp and wheel. I could not retry once I realized the method that should have been used.

In remaking this item I broke the item in to smaller pieces the Chain, clasp, wheel and crescent.

Chain:

I was originally drawn to this item by the chain. The chain is now commonly referred to as a sailor’s chain. It is a common roman style loop-in-loop chain. The chain I made is composed of fused loops of 22-gauge 0.999 silver. The process I used to make the chain is outlined in Classical Loop-in-Loop Chains and Their Derivatives by Jean Stark. I used a ½ in dowel rod to make ½ rings by wraping the wire around the dowel rod. I have places a small hole at the top of the dowel to start the wire in this anchor the wire to the dowel making it easier to wrap the wire. I then cut the wire into ring using wire snips. The Rings were then fused by heating then using a oxy-propane torch. When the rings reached the melting point of silver 1762F, the metal melts and fuses together. This happens because of the surface tension and adhesive forces in silver are greater than that of the charcoal block that they are fused on. I fuse on a piece of wood that has been charred because the charred wood insulates the silver, helping it stay at temperature. Silver and carbon also do not easily bond together so the silver is kept from tarnishing by oxidation. In period the rings would have been placed in a fire on a wood block until they fused and then removed from the fire before they melted completely. Once I fused all of the rings I used round nosed pliers to form the rings into the links seen. In period they would have used round nose pliers as well. A photo record of the process for making the chain is at the end of this document.

Process for chain:

After fusing the loops I used pliers to form and join the loops going through the following process.

Clasp:

The Clasp for this necklace was made using 14-gauge 0.999 silver wire. From the picture of the original you can see that the clasp is made out of a thicker gauge wire. I chose to double the thickness of the wire in the chain for the clasp. The hook was bent and wrapped using pliers and a vise, both pliers and vises were available in period to make a clasp. The neat thing about this clasp is that the clasp locks or snaps into place because of the smaller neck and the long hook on the clasp. The bar behind the wheel is part of the clasp. In the picture of the original it is showing a thick bar behind the wheel I would have liked to have used a different thickness for this bar than for the hook part of the clasp but do to the cost of getting a thicker piece of silver I continued to use the 14-gauge wire. Each loop on the bar was fused separately. In period this bar would have been made first and the chain would have been worked off of the bar part of the clasp. For me since I made the chain then the clasp it was very tricky to fuse the bar loops with out melting the chain. The bar was then hammered flat after fusing. While hammering I messed up the first loop of the chain so and had to try to reshape it. Flattening the bar did two things to help with the construction the silver work hardened it so that it was sturdier and gave a broad area to attach the wheel. I also flattened the loops attached to the bar so it layer flatter on the neckline, this may be a modern comfort but I thought it would be easier to wear and not bother me.

Wheel:

The wheel was again most likely a found object that was incorporated with the chain. The wheel does not look to be made with the same metal as the rest of the necklace because of the difference in oxidation between the pieces. I believe that he wheel is most likely a sterling silver where the rest of the piece is fine silver, nickel silver alloys turn a gray white when heated and do not tarnish as darkly as pure silver. From looking at the wheel it is obvious from the joins for the spokes of the wheel that this piece was soldered or fused but not cast. The thing that puzzled me was the bumps on the wire. At first I thought this was just from using a granulated wire. After trying to make this piece I believe the bumps are from the piecing wired together before fusing and the bumps are leftovers of the wire originally holding the piece together before firing. After reexamining what I was doing with the picture I tried to wire wrap everything in place and then fuse it. When I tried to fuse the cross bars with out the wire wrap, I kept melting the wheel and was having trouble getting the piece to stay and stick where they were placed. Once I wire wrapped the piece and fused it, I got the texture I was looking for and the parts were fused in place. The look of the wheel is a little sloppy. In the next try of this piece I will wire wrap each piece together so that I did not get that thick piece in the center. By wrapping each piece individually before ever trying to put this piece together it would have give a smother wrap and a more consistent look. To help with a more consistent look I need to be more precise while wrapping the wire and using a large gauge of wire to wrap. I use the 22-gauge wire that I had on hand to wrap the wheel. In the next try I think I am gong to use 16-gauge wire for the wheel and wrap with 18-gauge wire so the wrap is closer in size to the spokes.

Process for the wheel:

The process I followed to create the wheel is outlined below using lots of pictures.

To create the wheel I first fused the 3 large loops that make up the out side of the wheel.

Then I cut and tired to place the cross bars

I should have made the 8 spiked cross first and then fused it at 4 points and set the other 4 points inside the wheel. Wire wrapping would have made it easier to make the 8 pointed spokes with out the wheel.

I then wire wrapped the whole piece and tried again to put the spokes on. This time they were in place. The wire wrap did give the beaded look but since it was done, as an after thought does not give the finished look it should have.

I attached the wheel to the clasp by fusing two pieces of 22-gauge wire to the wheel and the bar. This is a quick and no lasting way that these pieces could have been attached.

Crescent:

The crescent was most likely a found object that was added to the chain. There are 2 other crescent charms listed with this dig. They are said to have been from bridle charms or armor. Each of the crescents that are listed is different. The crescent was most likely cast in period. I did not try to do a casting but tried to fuse a crescent out of ring of silver. This did not work well. I will most likely try to cast a crescent later. I took 3 pieces of 14 gauge wire wrapped them with 20 gauge wire and tried to fuse them in to a thick area with 2 thin ends. I then hammered the thin ends down to a crescent and fused a loop to the top to make a charm. The crescent that I made had a thick center from adding extra metal and was filed down to make a better shape. The loop attached to the crescent should have been turned 90 degrees. While working in the shop I kept referring to a very low-resolution picture of the item. This was a problem because I did not distinguish from the charm from the chain very well.

Other Crescents from the dig.