Find of the Month, September

Burial goods from a Roman Necropolis in Lincolnshire

by Cova Escandon (Archive Supervisor)

An unusual set of jewellery was found from the grave of an adolescent individual from a Roman Necropolis in Lincolnshire, dated to the 4th century AD. The grave good assemblage is made up of a group of copper-alloy, bone and iron bangles, along with a copper-alloy chain, glass beads and one copper-alloy ring.

Bracelets made of all types of materials were most common in Britain during the 4th Century AD, and had been used by the Romano-British elite since early Roman times, often fabricated with precious metals. However, around the time of the 4th Century AD, the use of these bangles became more common in the general population with materials such as bone or copper alloy used instead of precious metals. Such bangles were often worn with between six and sixteen bangles on both wrists. This practice would explain the large amount of fragments of metal bangles found in domestic contexts from the late Roman period. In the set found by Allen Archaeology, there were also several fragments of bone bangles which became very popular during the 4th century.

Eight copper alloy bracelets were discovered within the grave, all in different styles, three of them decorated. Such decoration includes an incised decoration of a repeating pattern of III X III, and on other bangles motifs including a wavy line with associated dots, faint cross-hatching, and a ring and dot design can be seen. Interestingly, this ring and dot pattern is also present on one of the bone fragments, suggesting that this group of metal and bone bangles were designed to be worn together.

III X III decoration on copper alloy bangle
III X III decoration on copper alloy bangle
Ring and dot detail on the copper alloy bangle
Ring and dot detail on the copper alloy bangle

Three of the bone fragments have holes drilled through one end and one fragment also has an iron rivet still attached. Two other fragments are joined together by a thin copper-alloy plate, suggesting that these bangles could have been made in sections and then attached together.

Fragment of decorated bone bangle
Fragment of decorated bone bangle

I always find curating these sort of finds a little bit bittersweet. On one hand they are very pretty and interesting artefacts, highly useful in being able to date the burial.  But on the other side, they remind us that what we have in front of us is a human being, carefully buried with personal items.