Iron Age to Roman penannular brooch from Wiltshire

The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a national scheme with one unified database. This makes research easier, bringing all records together in one place. It also means we can record finds from across the country and other Finds Liaison Officers regularly record things found in Somerset. This lovely brooch, SOM-629D01 is an example of a find from Alverdiston, Wiltshire with strong Somerset connections that can tell us something about local industries in the Iron Age and Roman periods.

The copper alloy brooch is a penannular type; an almost but not complete circle, and has a plain, undecorated frame and pin. The pin is also made from copper alloy and would once have moved freely around the frame but is now stuck in place with the tip over the gap in the frame. The brooch secured clothing by the pin being pushed through the fabric and out again, with the tip resting on the outside of the frame. Whilst the brooch has been in the ground, it has developed a dark green patina and would have been a simple but beautiful addition to the clothes it secured.

The ends of the frame coil outwards in a spiral and the way they do this makes this brooch very interesting. Most penannular brooches of this time terminate in either rounded knops (e.g. WILT-DA0C01) on the end of the frame, coils that rise up from the frame so that the loops are viewed from the side (e.g. SOM-E6EC36) or ‘omega’ ends that bend back from the frame, producing the shape of the Omega symbol (Ω) which gives them their name (e.g. KENT-5B4FA5). Our example has coils that are viewed from the top and are on the same level as the rest of the frame. This is the only example of a brooch with level coil terminals on the PAS database.

Brooches of this type are significant to the Somerset area. Fowler (1960, pg 157-158) suggests this brooch may have been a local derivative of Type Aa manufactured in the Weare and Glastonbury area. The findspot would seem to support this as it is only 30 miles away from Glastonbury.

Very few brooches of this type are found complete and unbroken which makes this example such a lovely find. This brooch has been dated to the first century BC or AD, a range of 200 years.

For more information, see Fowler, E., 1960 The origins and development of the Pennanular Brooch in Europe, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society

Katie Marsden, IfA/HLF Workplace Learning Bursary holder in Archaeological Finds, Somerset.