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A Decorated Bronze Mirror from an Iron Age Settlement at Holcombe, Near Uplyme, Devon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Aileen Fox  and
Sheila Pollard
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Summary

The Holcombe mirror was found buried in a pit in a late Iron Age settlement, and beneath a Romano-British villa occupied from the late first until nearly the end of the fourth century A.D. A study of the design and motifs indicates that it was produced by a western school of metal-smiths active in the first half of the first century A.D.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 16 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1973

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References

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page 16 note 2 Archaeologia, XLV (1880), 462.Google Scholar

page 16 note 3 Coins from the hoard are in Rougemont House Museum, Exeter (5) and Somerset County Museum, Taunton (11).

page 19 note 1 Farrar, R. A. H., ‘The Techniques and Sources of Romano-British black-burnished ware’ in A., Detsicas (ed.), Current Research in Romano-British Coarse Pottery (C.B.A. Research Report 10, 1973).Google Scholar

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page 21 note 1 Listed in Appendix 1, pp. 37 ff., and fig. 13

page 21 note 2 I am very grateful to Sheila Pollard for inviting me to collaborate in the publication of the mirror and to John Brailsford, Keeper of the Department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities for facilities to study it and other objects in the collection, and for his personal interest and encouragement. I am alsoindebted to Kenneth Painter and to Catherine Johns for many helpful discussions in the Department. The Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society kindly gave permission for the Verne mirror fragment to be drawn at the British Museum. The quality of the illustrations is due to Philip Compton, draughtsman in the Museum Department, and to Robert Turner, former technician in the Archaeology section, History Department, Exeter University.

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page 22 note 1 P. and P., p. 24. Type III A is a Y-shaped loop: probably the two forms are distinct: see Beds.Arch. J. v (1971), 11, where M. Spratling argues that the single Y-loop is a British invention, whilst the multi-looped handles were derived from Italianpaterae.Google Scholar

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page 23 note 1 Other people see the image as a long-eared owl, but there is no beak, essential to a bird of prey.

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page 23 note 6 Propertius II, xviii, 23–32. A friend has supplied the following translation.

So now, you crazy girl, you're taking your style from painted Britons? Having your fun, dolled up with a foreign tint on your gleaming head? Nature's look is always right: a Belgic colour is disgusting on a Roman face. If a silly young thing dyes her hair to change it, I hope she'll suffer horribly in the Underworld! Throw the stuff away: you'll look lovely to me anyway— lovely enough, if you come often enough. Really, if Miss X likes to dye her temples blue, does that mean that the ‘Blue Look’ is nice?

page 24 note 1 The technique of mirror engraving is currently being studied by Richard Savage and Philip Lowery and also forms part of Mansel Spratling's University of London Ph.D. thesis. All three have indicated that the designs were based on compass construction. My brief account is based on Mr. Savage's contribution to the Society's meeting at which the paper was given, and on friendly discussions and correspondence whilst this article was being prepared for publication.

page 24 note 2 I put the problem to Mrs. Lane, who wrote as follows:

Corrosion can form in two ways: it can either follow the contours of the metal surface exactly, thus preserving any design in the remaining metal, or it can attack in such an uneven way that no design remains. If there is no design on the present metal surface that has been attacked by corrosion, there is no way of telling visually whether there was originally a design or not. Even if it were possible to examine the surface metallographically where there was no design visible, one could not say with any certainty whether there had never been any design or whether the corrosion had removed the layer of metal beneath it which would retain the ‘shadow’ of the design. Sometimes the corrosion layers retain the design even when it does not remain in the metal surface. In the Holcombe mirror the corrosion layers only retained the design where there was design remaining in the metal. So I do not think that where there was heavy corrosion one can form any conclusions; where there was little corrosion one might be more certain.

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page 30 note 4 P. and P., fig. 60 and p. 97. The mirror was destroyed in the last war but fortunately had been sent for conservation to the British Museum in 1939, when it was photographed. The negatives have disappeared but a print recently came to light in the Dept. of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities which is reproduced as pl. VI. It was not available in 1956 when Cyril Fox re-drew the design from the original publication by Spence Bate in Archaeologia, XL (1866), pl. xxx. The photograph shows that the top portion of the uppermost roundel was filled with basketry and presumably was without the crescent shown in the previous drawings.Google Scholar

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page 31 note 3 P. and P., pl. 60.

page 31 note 4 P. and P., pl. 56a, c: the mirror is now lost, see Appendix II, p. 39.

page 31 note 5 ‘The craftsman is surely building up a new diffusive style in which the voids are intended to please the eye as much as the pattern.’ P. and P., p. 94; see also Antiquity, XXXIV (1960), 210 for comments on the Great Chesterford mirror, and its new diagonal balance.Google Scholar

page 31 note 6 Mayer and St. Keverne constitute a third group. Spratling has recently argued that all mirrors could be contemporary.

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page 37 note 5 Antiq. J. XLI (1961), 186.Google Scholar

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page 40 note 3 Obtainable from W. Canning & Co., Ltd., P.O. Box 288, Great Hampton Street, Birmingham 18.