PAS Finds: week ended 20 May 2022

May 27, 2022June 3, 2022 Peter

PAS Finds: week ended 20 May 2022

My selection of the detecting finds recorded at the PAS for the week ended 20 May 2022.

Featured Find

Cruciform bead from a beaded torc

Photo: The Portable Antiquities Scheme CC By SA2.0

Object type: Torc

Period: Iron Age

Primary material: Copper alloy

Date found: 12/05/2022

Location: Wiltshire

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“

Selection of other finds

Photo: The Portable Antiquities Scheme CC By SA2.0

Grosso of Doge Giovanni Dandolo

Obverse: Doge (duke) Giovanni Dandolo of Venice (1280-1289) receiving banner inscribed DVX from patron saint St. Mark, The legend reads around the edge reads IO DANDVL SM VENETI. Reverse shows Jesus Christ Pantocrator (ruler of the universe) and initials IC-XC (“Jesus Christ conquers”). It’s a Find of Note.

Photo: The Portable Antiquities Scheme CC By SA2.0

Archbishop Rotherham penny of Richard III

The T and upright key flanking the neck give this as an episcopal issue of Thomas Rotherham (the “T” being for Thomas). He was archbishop of York from 1480-1500 and the reverse legend would read CIVITΛS ЄBORΛCI. It has been designated a Find of Note: Regional Importance.

Photo: The Portable Antiquities Scheme CC By SA2.0

Quarter stater of the Regni

A quarter stater of the Regni type Qc. The PAS record has this as only the second know example of this design and so it is designated a Find of Note: Regional Importance.

Photo: Kent County Council CC By SA2.0

Scandinavian jellinge type brooch

The brooch is of single piece construction dating to the 10th century. The decoration is in the Jellinge style of a sinuous beast in a broadly S shape. It is a Find of Note of Regional Importance.