Dragonesque brooch

Well-preserved brooch found in Yorkshire. The pin is attached around the top neck and secured by bending round the lower neck. No remaining enamel, 48 mm long.

The dragonesque brooch is a distinctive type of Romano-British brooch made in Roman Britain between about 75 and 175 AD.[1] They have been found in graves and elsewhere, in recent years especially by metal-detectors, and were evidently a fairly affordable style; over 200 examples are now known.[2] The name comes from a supposed resemblance to a dragon, but Catherine Johns suggests that if any real animal was intended to be represented, the hare may be the most likely candidate.[3]

They have the form of a double-headed animal with a thin, flat S-shaped body, a head at each end, "large upstanding ears, and a curled snout", and a pin allowing them to be used for fastening clothes. The back is normally plain.[4] They are typically about 50 mm (2 in) long. They are in cast bronze (or at least a copper alloy),[5] and about two-thirds feature decoration in vitreous enamel,[6] now often mostly fallen away, which was a speciality of the pre-conquest Celtic art of Britain. In terms of style, they are regarded as Celtic rather than Roman or classical; they "express the continuing Celtic aesthetic in the provincial Roman mileu", despite being "Roman products that did not exist in the Celtic Iron Age" before the conquest.[7]

Front, side and back of a brooch found near Doncaster; only the ring of the pin survives

They are sometimes found in pairs, but with both examples facing in the same direction,[8] saving the need for a different mould but at the expense of symmetry. These were probably worn below the shoulders, perhaps mostly by women, and perhaps connected by a chain or cord.[9] The thickness of the pins, often square in section, suggests they were used to fasten clothing in thick, loosely-woven textiles; finer materials would have been damaged.[10]

Most are found incomplete, especially in the pins, where only the circle attachment may remain, or part of the shaft, or nothing. The enamel has very often fallen out, in whole or in part. Many bodies have broken into two or more pieces. Their original appearance would have been much brighter, the metal probably kept polished.[11] The style is "ever-popular on the antiquities market",[12] and often copied in modern craft jewellery.

  1. ^ Johns, 152–153; PAS note,citing "Worral, 2007" for dates, which vary somewhat between sources.
  2. ^ Hunter, 138–139
  3. ^ Johns, 152
  4. ^ Johns, 151–152
  5. ^ Johns, 13
  6. ^ Hunter, 139
  7. ^ Johns, 151 (quoted); Hunter, 136–139
  8. ^ Johns, 152–153
  9. ^ British Museum; Lucerna, 20
  10. ^ Johns, 153
  11. ^ Johns, 14
  12. ^ Hunter, 139