A beautiful copper-alloy Roman enamelled plate brooch, in the form of a horse-and-rider, dating to circa, AD 250-410. The brooch survives largely complete, missing only its pin. This zoomorphic brooch is cast in the form of a horse and rider, with incised ridges adding further detail to the figure's hair, and the horse's mane and tail and punched circles depicting the eyes. The horse's flank and the man's side are decorated with recessed cells, retaining traces of both red and blue enamel. The catch plate and a perforated lug both project from the reverse of the plate, on a plane parallel to its length. Examples presented by Bayley and Butcher (2004: 175-176) broadly date horse-and-rider brooches to the late third century into the early fifth, and suggest that this brooch type has a strong religious connection due to large quantities discovered at temple sites. It has also been suggested that these brooches may depict a Romano-Celtic rider god, perhaps a combination of Mars and a native deity, and may have been purchased from shrines as the Roman equivalent of medieval pilgrim badges (Johns 1996: 173-174) publishes a similar example. DF Mackreth (2011, 181-182) also says these brooches are related to a cult and that there were two centres: Somerset-Wiltshire (temple site Cold Kitchen Hill, Brixton Deverill) and Suffolk-Norfolk-Cambridgeshire (shrine at Hockwold-cum-Wilton). A beautiful example with much of its original enamel remaining.

Dimensions: 32 mm x 28 mm.

References: Mackreth 2011: plate 124, no. 7921. Benet's Artefacts of England & the United Kingdom, Third Edition: R07-0533.