Sagum Mania!

[tlclark]

Franklin,
There were two parallel types of crucifrom brooches, The Germanic one and the Roman one.

Aitor,

Thanks for the review, I can see what you mean about the pin fitting.

I think the closest I will get to a late 5th-early 6th C. byz. crossbow is the Holger one.

Just a side note:

Lawrence Nees has recently been challenging the catergorization of certain items as "Roman" and others as "Germanic"

Helen Evans, the medieval curator at the Met in NY (who was the first to turn the fibula the "right" way after sitting in cases for decades upside down) is inclined to agree and there is a major relabeling effort underway regarding all so-called "Germanic" brooches/fibula etc.

The standing thinking has been that Germanic people are barbarians, metalworkers, etc. and that the portable art of brooches and its designs, etc, were brought to Europe by them.

Small problem. You go just outside the periphery of the influence of the Roman empire, in both region and chronology, and all those wonderful objects disappear, whereas if you go earlier in Roman contexts, you find prototypes galore.

If there are no "Germanic" brooches before the Germans ran into the Romans, then they can hardly be called germanic can they?

Also, all of those lovely cloissone garnet eagle brooches that we have been calling "Ostrogothic" come almost exclusively from female burials of people long inside the influence of Rome.

Lawrence Nees has something forthcoming regarding garnet inlays and cloissone icons in the Byzantine world, many of which pre-date all of the barbarian examples.

Cloissone NOT barbarian?! Heresy! but he makes a compelling case.

So the "Germanic" fibulae are actually "Roman" fibulae with a slight Germanic 'flair'.

FYI.

Travis