Roman Artefacts
Welcome to the Roman artefact page.
Roman Brooch
Colchester type, one-piece brooch,
The bow is plain and slender; the catch plate is missing along with the spring and pin.
Roman artefact
Roman Bronze casket mount
This 3” bronze bar is from a small wooden casket.
I would like to thank Isle of Wight Greg, and the Northants Museum, for the id
Roman Pin
Pins I am told are one of the commonest finds on Romano-British sites. They were both decorative and functional, used for securing both hair (female) and clothing (male and female). They came in bone, bronze, silver and gold.
Not sure if this one would have been used for the hair or on clothing?
Miniature bronze axe
These were known as "votive" offerings as they were often used at burials
or thrown into streams as offerings to the Gods.
This is a miniature axe but other tools are commonly found.
This little axe is very interesting. I wonder about these tiny axes, especially these miniature socketed types.
I wonder if they were worn suspended around the neck or attached somewhere about the person. Culturally I believe they are Iron Age and use extends way into the Roman period. I also wonder what exactly they represent? It seems a strange thing to do, to produce a miniature socketed axe at a time when the iron axe as we know it had supplanted the original full scale socketed axe as an effective tool. Socketed axes did cross the line for a while and iron examples are well known however they were unable to compete and fell out of use.
Do these axes commemorate something, a lament for the passing of a golden age before the advent of iron, perhaps? (This would be nothing new!) Are they a form of currency? An extension of the logical process of progressive debasement that the socketed axe underwent as it passed from effective tool to currency unit in the very late Bronze Age?
I don't suppose we will ever know.
Votive offerings (a.k.a. "votives" and "ex-votos") are actions or material things vowed to God (or promised to a Saint) in return for a hoped-for miracle.
Technically, such a gift is known as a votive offering. Votum is the past participle of the Latin verb vovere, 'to vow', and it can mean
a prayer, a dedication, a wish or longing. The thinking behind votive offerings seems to be this. If (a) I give this object to the deity (or the fairies or Lady Luck) then in return I hope that (b) they will grant me my wish.
A vow reverses the order: I promise such-and-such a gift if my prayer is answered.
The combination of prayer and gift represents the transaction or bargain struck by the mortal with the immortal.