The Jewellery Of Roman Britain

Celtic and Classical Traditions

Dr Catherine Johns, Catherine Johns

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781857285666
• eBook ISBN: 9781135851118
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

This work provides a survey of the jewellery of Roman Britain. Fully illustrated and accessible to both the specialist and amateur enthusiast, it surveys the full range of personal ornament worn in Britain during the Roman period, the 1st to 4th centuries AD. It emphasizes the presence of two distinct cultural and artistic traditions, the classical element introduced by the Romans and the indigeneous Celtic background. The interaction of these traditions affected all aspects of Romano-British life and is illustrated in the jewellery.; The meaning and significance of personal ornament in a wide range of cultures is discussed, including such matters as symbolism and the display of wealth and status. The principal types of Romano-British jewellery are classified in detail, drawing attention to those which can be relatively closely dated. The coverage is not restricted to precious-metal objects, but includes jewellery made of base metals and materials such as bone, jet and glass. The final chapter is devoted to the techniques of manufacture, a subject which has become better understood in recent years as a result of scientific advances. The book should appeal to anyone who practices, teaches or studies Roman archaeology, together with all those with a professional or amateur interest in the history of jewellery and design.

Chapter 1

The nature of jewellery and the nature of the evidence

Meaning and symbolism in jewellery

The reasons for buying and wearing jewellery may appear to be self-evident and to have changed little over the centuries. Probably most people would initially quote appearance as the principal motivation: metal and other ornaments are regarded as beautiful in themselves, and are thought to enhance the appearance of the wearer. While this is true as far as it goes, it is only part of the story. Jewellery is still heavily loaded with symbolic values and associations, and there is every reason to believe that these factors were at least as important in antiquity as they are today, if not more so.

At its most basic, the wearing of precious-metal jewellery provides evidence of the owner’s wealth. The ornaments may have an actual intrinsic value that can be directly related to the value of currency in those societies that use coinage. Closely linked with this is the use of jewellery as a badge of status or rank in the form of special items that symbolize authority or even a particular profession or calling. For women, the status of being adult and married is one that is defined in most societies by specific types of personal ornament that may not be worn by unmarried girls; the question of wealth is often interconnected. Finally, amuletic jewellery, designed to express religious or superstitious beliefs and to offer some kind of protection to the wearer, is, and always has been, extremely widespread. We can point to modern analogies for all these classes of jewellery, and we can be sure that they existed in some form in the Roman period, but there are quite severe limitations on the inferences we can draw from surviving ornaments themselves. Some meanings can be revealed only if written sources describe them.

Jewellery as visible wealth is exemplified in some modern Islamic contexts by the wearing of actual coins in headdresses and other ornaments. Such ornaments may themselves indicate the adult, married woman, and the gold may include dowry money, brought into the marriage by the wife, and often legally distinguishable from the joint wealth of a couple. Jewellery incorporating coins was fashionable from time to time in the Roman period, as it still is today, and indeed the display of intrinsically valuable jewellery to indicate the wearer’s wealth remains a frequent function of jewellery in modern Western society; so much so that there is a widespread urge to imitate precious materials in such a way as to deceive the observer and present an appearance of affluence at no great expense to the owner. Our modern low-purity gold is part of this phenomenon, but because 9-carat is called “gold”, its status is ambivalent. In Roman and in modern times, gold and silver have been simulated by the gilding and silvering of base metals, and by using bronze, iron and tin in such a way that they look superficially like gold and silver. Glass was, and remains, the material principally used for imitating gems, though the appreciation of hardstones in antiquity was based on qualities other than those which constitute their greatest appeal today (in general, colour was prized rather than sparkle). The monetary value of precious-metal jewellery has often been combined with the symbolism of permanence and affection which is carried by some jewellery to produce a very powerful amuletic effect.

Most societies have defined gold as an exceedingly precious material, and its use as a medium of exchange and an absolute standard of value has become interwoven in a rather complex fashion with its use as a decorative metal. This perception persists today in spite of the fact that much modern gold jewellery, although officially sanctioned by hallmarks, is of comparatively low purity: 9-carat gold contains only 37.5 per cent gold, with 62.5 per cent of alloying metals. The importance of the symbolic image of permanence and high quality, even when belied by low prices, was vividly illustrated by a widely reported news story of 1991 in Britain. Light-heartedly and with engaging honesty, the head of a major chain of high-street jewellers admitted in a speech that his firm’s products were of a low quality commensurate with their modest and popular prices. The reaction of the public was intensely hostile, and the company suffered severely from reduced sales as a result. Even the most naïve buyers must have been aware at some level that gold jewellery which costs less than a good meal could not possibly be of heirloom quality. But they did not wish to face that fact. Disgruntled customers interviewed on the news media mentioned repeatedly that the admission by the chairman of the firm had undermined and even destroyed their pleasure in important gifts and symbols of affection and commitment such as wedding and engagement rings; it was abundantly clear that the jewellery was important as a physical embodiment, in the form of a precious and lasting object, of certain emotional and spiritual concepts; the devaluing of the actual gold ornaments reflected adversely on the ideas they symbolized.

Jewellery may also communicate information about the wearer’s rank or calling, which is another aspect of his or her position in society. As we shall see in the next chapter, there is reason to believe that in the Celtic societies of pre-Roman Britain and Gaul the wearing of a torc around the neck may have carried specific messages of authority, while to Graeco-Roman perceptions circlets to be worn on the head indicated authority and triumph or victory. Wreaths, diadems and crowns have retained these meanings, to the extent that certain types of crown may be worn only by a royal ruler. In modern society, a jewelled tiara continues to convey a social message, but one that has become more focused within the last century or so. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such ornaments were appropriate jewellery for women attending balls and other formal evening occasions, so although their use was always restricted to the upper echelons of society, they might be said to have been in fairly regular wear. By the late twentieth century the number of women who possess a tiara, and the number of functions where such an article may properly be worn, are very small indeed, being virtually confined to grand occasions where royalty is present.

Examples abound of jewels worn as a mark of office, and there would undoubtedly have been instances of this in Roman Britain. Objects such as mayoral chains and bishops’ rings are not intended primarily for decoration, however elaborately wrought they may be, but to advertise the role and the place in society of the wearer. Official significance of this kind has been postulated for some Roman ornaments. For example, late Roman crossbow brooches are thought to be badges of military or civilian authority. The point to remember is that our knowledge of such matters is likely to remain extremely limited and partial. We can infer special meanings for certain items, and we may well be right at least some of the time, but there are likely to be other objects that we pass over as purely decorative which in fact carried a clear and specific message to contemporaries.

One of the major classes of symbolic jewellery is that which indicates the married or adult woman; the two definitions are virtually interchangeable in most societies. It is and was the norm for married women to be distinguished from young girls by their costume and jewellery, and modern Western society is no exception. The wedding ring is still imbued with powerful connotations of personal status and commitment. As recently as a generation ago in Britain, most people regarded the presence or absence of a plain gold ring on the third finger of a woman’s left hand as reliable proof of her married or single status: no married woman, it was thought, would be without such a ring, and few single ones would be brazen enough to wear one without legal sanction. The circular shape of a plain finger-ring, with no beginning or end, may be regarded as symbolic of eternity; formed of gold, a metal that does not corrode or deteriorate, this is a telling image of permanence. If the impact of such rings has diminished in the final decade of the twentieth century, it may be more attributable to changing perceptions of formal marriage contracts than to a weakening of the symbolic implications of rings. The wearing of wedding rings by men has gained ground in recent decades, but it remains optional and far less common than the woman’s wedding ring.

This use of rings is so very familiar to us that it is easy to assume that Roman, and specifically Romano-British, practice was the same as today’s, but there may have been other ornaments that were appropriate for displaying a woman’s marital status. In modern Egypt, for example, some country women still wear gold or silver ankle bracelets (khul-khaal) to show that they are adult, married women.¹ Similar ornaments are known in other North African countries, and it is interesting to speculate on the underlying symbolism, which would appear to include hints of bondage or slavery: certainly these heavy precious-metal rings resemble shackles. With the development of feminist perspectives, they can more easily be perceived as symbolic of the traditionally subordinate position of women within marriage. If any of the bracelets and bangles (some of which may well be anklets) that survive from Roman Britain had such a meaning, we would have no way of knowing it. As an interesting aside, we might note that the wearing of an ankle-chain in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s was widely understood to signify a woman of easy virtue, or indeed a professional prostitute; this symbolism appears to have died out. In a very specific sense, we do not know whether the widespread practice of attributing the adult/wife meaning to a particular item of jewellery took different forms in the Roman and Celtic traditions. Finger-rings, as we shall see, were relatively uncommon items of jewellery in the pre-Roman Iron Age of Britain, and it follows that if British Iron Age women wore some special ornament that proclaimed them mature, it was not a ring. Some Romano-British women might well have followed the indigenous tradition.

It is not only the marriage contract itself that can be symbolized by a ring. Both today and in the past, a ring may be a record of betrothal in advance of the formal wedding, or may serve simply as an informal token of love or friendship. Certain late Roman and Byzantine rings are decorated with busts of a man and a woman, which, though not realistic portraits, are probably intended to represent the betrothed couple, but more common are rings that bear the device of clasped right hands (dextrarum iunctio), generally regarded as betrothal or marriage rings since the handshake signified a contract. The tradition of rings as gifts between lovers rather than specific marriage rings also goes back to the Roman period, and such gifts are identifiable by the inscriptions they bear. Phrases like amo te (I love you) appear on Classical jewellery as well as contemporary popular ornaments. Jewellery that openly declares material riches or social position is intended to be “read” and understood by others, but love-tokens, even if clearly displayed, have a more private, talismanic function, reinforcing the bond which they express. Medieval “posy rings”, which bore a motto, often of a pious nature (a “poesie”) were often inscribed on the interior of the band, and this is still a favoured position for personal dedications and messages of affection. Such inscriptions may be kept completely private, known only to the giver and the recipient of the gift. They may be regarded in much the same light as the amuletic jewellery which forms a wide-ranging class in antiquity and is still more important today than is commonly realized.

Figure 1.1 A gold ring from Colchester, set with a finely engraved garnet depicting Cupid with a herm and a goose.

(Photo: British Museum)

Amuletic jewellery

A great deal is known about pagan Graeco-Roman religion and mythology, and it is therefore not difficult to identify elements from these beliefs in objects such as engraved gems. Equivalent elements from Celtic beliefs are far harder to recognize and define, and we must frequently rely on guesswork. Once again, we find that there are modern parallels for the meanings and significance attached to personal ornament, although they may not be immediately obvious. It has already been demonstrated that the initial assumption, referred to above, that in modern society jewellery is worn only for its decorative value, is a very superficial judgement, and that wealth and various aspects of social status remain part of the system behind the choice and wearing of personal ornament. Yet religious and superstitious impulses also play their part even today.

The most obvious parallel in a modern European country is the wearing of a Christian symbol, namely a cross or crucifix. The extent to which the emblem is truly a statement of religious belief is very variable. The author well remembers, as a pupil in a very traditional and academic English girls’ school many years ago, the popularity of gold pendants in the form of crosses or Stars of David. Only “religious” jewellery was permitted to be worn with school uniform, and many of the schoolgirls invoked their Christian or Jewish affiliations as an acceptable reason for wearing an article of adornment, even where the religious conviction was fairly lukewarm. The committed Christian may wear a crucifix solely as a reminder of his or her belief in redemption dearly bought by a saviour both human and divine; the mixed motivation of the person who wants to wear an attractive decoration which also has an acceptable symbolic devotional meaning is probably more common, and it is more than likely that there are even those who wear such pendants in spite of having only the haziest idea of their meaning. A London anecdote of the 1990s, surely based on fact, refers to a young saleswoman who offers the potential buyer the choice of a plain cross or one “with the little man on it”.

Another example of Christian symbolism in modern jewellery is the St Christopher emblem. In the Middle Ages, numerous saints and martyrs, identified by distinctive attributes (often the instruments of their martyrdom), were depicted in applied art and were understood to have special powers of protection appropriate to their own individual histories. St Christopher has retained his significance as a patron saint of travellers even in late twentieth-century Britain. Travel is a frequent activity and a hazardous one in our society, but it is none the less hard to say why the image of this saint in particular is still widely perceived as apotropaic. It seems fair to assume that most of those who carry a St Christopher image on their person or in their car do so in a superstitious rather than religious spirit; the parallel with the use of religious charms in antiquity may be quite close.

The dividing line between superstition and religion will always be contentious, and will depend to some extent on the observer’s own beliefs, but it seems appropriate to draw attention to some of the modern superstitious symbols in jewellery that have no apparent connection with religious belief.

Two that are particularly significant because they relate directly to ancient beliefs concern the zodiac signs and “birthstones”. Jewellery that incorporates symbols from the twelve signs of the zodiac is so widespread that few modern Europeans think twice about it. A person’s star-sign is casually regarded as a fortunate symbol, even by those who have little time for superstition and who would certainly not claim a deep-seated conviction in the efficacy of such a symbol in attracting good fortune. The history of the zodiac symbols extends well back into antiquity, and their appeal may be a combination of their venerable history and the distinctive and attractive appearance of many of the signs themselves.

The notion of “birthstones” sounds like the purest Victorian sentimentality, but it may be part of a tradition that goes back to ancient beliefs about gems. The symbolism and alleged mystic powers of crystals and coloured stones is still taken very seriously by many people today. Those without any belief in gem symbolism might still select a gem-set item of jewellery with a stone thought to be appropriate to their month of birth rather than one chosen only for its colour or reflective properties. Some of the meanings attached to certain gemstones in antiquity or the medieval period have been largely forgotten: amethyst is now regarded as the birthstone for February or for the star-sign of Aquarius, but few remember that it was once said to protect the wearer against intoxication. The significance lies not so much in the precise interpretation as in the fact that a mauve or purple quartz may still be regarded as having some special power. Some people also continue to be concerned about the negative symbolism of pearls (“pearls for tears”) and of opals, though pearls also have an image of purity and innocence which still makes them popular for very young women and brides. Belief in the mystic powers of hardstone crystals is thus still present at various levels of consciousness, and even those who do not share it should be able to understand the way in which the Graeco-Roman world perceived these natural wonders.

Other symbols that are popular in modern jewellery were unknown to the ancients: horseshoes, four-leaved clover and heather now denote good fortune, as does the number 13 in some countries. Black cats are a post-medieval symbol of luck. Modern communications and advertising spawn unexpected and ephemeral images, such as cartoon characters, which are utilized in personal adornment and would be meaningless to an observer distanced by time or place from the culture concerned. The frequency of such images in contemporary life may not have been reflected precisely in antiquity, but similar circumstances, equally impossible for another culture to interpret, may have obtained. An example would be a visual image which referred to some folk saying or proverb that has not been preserved in the written record.

However, much of the imagery in Roman jewellery is perfectly straightforward for us to read and interpret. Most obvious are the representations of deities, usually on engraved gems which were set into jewels, typically rings. We find hardstones with depictions of most of the major gods and goddesses of Graeco-Roman mythology, and we can assume that the wearers would have exercised some conscious choice when they preferred one over the other. Animal or inanimate attributes of deities were often depicted on their own, and were understood to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of illustraions
• Map of Britain
• Introduction
• 1. The nature of jewellery and the nature of the evidence
• 2. The two traditions: Celtic and Graeco-Roman
• 3. Finger-rings
• 4. Gemstones and other settings
• 5. Necklaces and bracelets
• 6. Earrings and hair-ornaments
• 7. Brooches
• 8. The manufacture of Roman jewellery
• Afterword
• Appendix: Four treasures from Roman Britain
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index