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The Canterbury Late Roman Treasure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

C. M. Johns  and
T. W. Potter
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Extract

In 1962, an important hoard of Christian late Roman silver was found at Canterbury and declared Treasure Trove. The assemblage, which dates to the end of the fourth century A.D. or the first decade of the fifth, and includes ingots and inscribed spoons, was published in 1965. In 1982, a spoon appeared on the London antiquities market which on investigation proved to be one of five objects (with two stamped ingots and two siliquae) that had formed part of the 1962 discovery, but had not been declared; they were pronounced Treasure Trove in 1983. This paper is an illustrated catalogue and discussion of all the items now known to constitute the Canterbury treasure. Two further sets of late Roman silver spoons are also catalogued, an unprovenanced group in private hands which displays marked links with the Canterbury treasure, and the Dorchester-on-Thames hoard, found in the late nineteenth century and typologically and chronologically closely related to Canterbury. X-ray fluorescence analyses of all the items have been carried out in the British Museum Research Laboratory, and the results are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , September 1985 , pp. 312 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1985

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References

Notes

1 Painter, K. S., ‘A Roman silver treasure from Canterbury’, J.B.A.A. 3rd ser. xxviii (1965). IGoogle Scholar.

2 Christie's sale, 16th December 1982, lot no. 23.

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4 Cahn, H.et al., Der spätrömische Silberschatz von Kaiseraugst (Derendingen, 1984)Google Scholar. This major work was not available while the present article was in preparation.

5 The spoon is inscribed VOT FEC SATVRN. It is now in the collections of the Prehistoric and Romano-British Department of the British Museum, reg. no. P.1984.1-1.1.

6 The group was briefly published by Potter, T. W. in Antiq.J. lxii (1982), 375Google Scholar.

7 The restoration was carried out by Ian Mclntyre, of the Department of Conservation, British Museum.

8 Painter, K. S., ‘A Roman silver ingot from Kent’, Antiq J. lii (1972), 84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Two Roman silver ingots from Kent’, Arch. Cant, xcvii (1981), 201Google Scholar; ‘A Roman silver ingot’, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, New Acquisitions, 1, B.M. Occ. Pap. 22 (1981), 21Google Scholar.

9 Painter, 1972, op. cit. (note 8), nos. 30 and 31Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., no. 1.

11 A. M. Burnett and C. M. Johns, ‘The Whorlton Hoard (1810)’, in Carson, R. A. G. and Burnett, A. M., Recent Coin Hoards from Roman Britain, B.M. Occ. Pap. 5 (1979)Google Scholar; the Whorlton bar ingot is no. 6 in the catalogue of the find, and is discussed on p. 114.

12 Johns, C. and Carson, R. A. G., ‘The Water Newton Hoard’, Durobrivae, iii (1975), 10Google Scholar. See also Appendix B (p. 27) in Painter, K. S., The Water Newton Early Christian Silver (London, 1977)Google Scholar.

13 This point was brought to my notice by Kenneth Painter, and I am grateful for his comments and suggestions.

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15 See notes 3 and 4.

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22 Milojčić, , op. cit. (note 14); several examples are illustrated in Abb. 7.Google Scholar

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35 Clarke, , op. cit. (note 31)Google Scholar, Grave 183, no. 182.

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37 In the Department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities, registration no. 1962.11-8.15.

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39 The list differs in only minor respects from the original list in Painter's article (op. cit. (note 1)). Legible mint-marks have been added and some dates have been refined. The emperors represented on coins 5-7 are not, in my view, clear, but this does not affect their date.

40 Britannia, xv (1984), 163Google Scholar.

41 The analyses of the Dorchester-on-Thames spoons, which are included in table 4, were caried out after this general discussion was written; they are discussed in Appendix II.

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53 Lang, J. and Hughes, M. J., ‘Joining techniques’, in Aspects of Early Metallurgy, B.M. Occ. Pap. 17 (1980)Google Scholar.