A coppery alloy cruciform bead from a beaded torc that dates to about 50BC – AD 150. The square aperture would have allowed several of these beads to be threaded onto an iron rod to form a torc that would have been worn around the neck. It is a Find of Note of Regional Importance.
Perdiswell Torc
The Perdiswell torc was found in 1840, two feet down in a gravel pit in Perdiswell, Wiltshire. It illustrates how these beads were used.
It’s made of 22 beads and 24 spacers that are threaded onto an iron bar. Only the beaded section remains; the other part of the torc would have been a solid bar.
Jabez Allies recorded the discovery in his “Folklore and Antiquities of Worcestershire” in 1840: “A remarkable bronze fragment of a torc, or ornament for the neck … It is rather more than the third of the circle, and was probably broken in battle. An iron rod runs through its centre connecting the bronze pieces or vertebrae“