page_title: Thetford Hoard
section_title: Gold jewellery
hierarchical_section_title: Thetford Hoard / Gold jewellery
caption_attribution_description: English: Shale pot from the Thetford Hoard
context_page_description: The Thetford Hoard is a hoard of Romano-British metalwork found by Arthur and Greta Brooks at Gallows Hill, near Thetford in Norfolk, England, in November 1979, and now in the British Museum. Dating from the mid- to late-4th century AD, this hoard is a collection of thirty-three silver spoons and three silver strainers, twenty-two gold finger rings, four gold bracelets, four necklace pendants, five gold chain necklaces and two pairs of necklace-clasps, a gold amulet designed as a pendant, an unmounted engraved gem, four beads, and a gold belt-buckle decorated with a dancing satyr. A small cylindrical lidded box made from shale also belonged to the hoard.
context_section_description: The gold belt-buckle is an unusual find, and would have been worn by a man; we know that belts decorated in various forms were important symbols of office or status in late Roman times, though few elements of them have survived. Its decoration, of a satyr carrying a pedum (shepherd's crook) and a bunch of grapes, accords with other hints at Bacchic imagery throughout the assemblage, in both the jewellery and the tableware. For example, the running feline animal on spoon (cochlear) (item 66), originally identified as a panther or leopard, and referred to as the 'panther spoon', is certainly a reference to Bacchus, who was regularly accompanied by a panther or leopard (Panthera pardus), or by a tiger (Panthera tigris). In fact, the animal on Thetford spoon (item 66) is probably a tiger: the rendering of the stripes as very short curved lines, easily mistaken for spots, was common in Roman art.
  The gold finger-rings could have been worn by either men or women, though the bracelets, and necklaces with pendants were chiefly feminine jewels at this date. Many of the rings display elaborate filigree work, typical of late-Roman taste, and a few are of highly unusual design. The tiny horned, Pan-like head that forms the bezel of ring (item 23) appears to be unparalleled, and may well be intended as a reference to Faunus, while the design of (item 7), two birds flanking a vase, is both a standard Bacchic image, eventually adopted in Christian iconography, and possibly something more specific in this instance. The birds, even though they are at a very small scale, have the appearance of woodpeckers, and picus, the Latin name for birds of this kind, was also the name of the father of Faunus in some sources (Virgil, Aeneid 7, 48).
  Much of the jewellery will have been designed and selected for its talismanic, religious or personal significance. A gold amulet pendant, intended for suspension around the neck (and with parallels including one from York), was filled with sulphur, possibly because of its apotropaic qualities. One ring is set with an engraved gem of brown chalcedony 13 × 9.5 mm. Upon it is depicted a cock-headed, snake-legged deity known as an Anguipede, holding a shield which is inscribed in Greek with ΩΑΙ, reversed ΙΑΩ or (iao), a magical word often associated with this deity (see Voces mysticae). Although set in a closed-back setting, this gem was also inscribed on its reverse side with the Greek ΑΒΡΑϹΞϹΑΒΑΩΘ which translates as Abrasax Sabaoth also a word of power and associated name of the deity. It is interesting that a Greek-inscribed charm appears in a hoard primarily associated with an Italian (Latin) minor deity (Faunus), though many other Greek inscriptions are known from Roman Britain, and other examples of late-Antique ‘magical gems’ have also been found in Latin-speaking provinces.
  A matching pair of bracelets (items 24 and 25), which at the time of finding and publication could be paralleled only by similar bracelets from the 1841 Lyon jewellery hoard, which is of somewhat earlier date, have now been paralleled by a set of four matching bracelets from the Hoxne hoard found in 1992, the date of which appears to be close to that of the deposition of the Thetford find.
  It has been suggested that all the objects "may well have been commissioned by a group of intellectuals who fervently believed in the old values and who interred the objects when serious persecution of non-Christians began in the 390s".
  Most of the gold objects appear to be in fresh, apparently unworn condition. Roman gold, which is of high purity (in this case, with a mean gold content of over 94 percent; is soft, and quickly shows signs of use.  This pristine condition is one of the unusual features of the Thetford jewellery assemblage. Most of the rings have design and workmanship characteristics in common that suggest they may be the products of a single workshop, while the construction of the matching pair of bracelets is also paralleled in the form of two of the rings (items 10 and 12). It would be somewhat surprising for a single owner, or 
caption: Shale box, part of the hoard, probably containing the smaller items.
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