Roman Harness

[History for all]

Hi all,

Well i finally got round to putting some photos of the harness on here.
Unfortunately I only have photos of the large pendant on here.......but i think u can get the idea from this one!
It measures about 20cm in length and is silvered all over with vine leaves and grapes (its in its very uncleaned state in the photos so you might find it hard to see this fact)

Hope you all enjoy seeing it

Jordan

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Thanks Jordan!

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

OhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Impressive.

If i have know about his existence, probably i have to tried to make a reconstruction instead the one i'm doing.



Can i make questions? Do you remember the number of pieces? How many little pendants? Position?

Do you know if there are published?

Thanks for the pictures!

[History for all]

There are about 40 items in total
Just the one large pendant, 6 smaller pendants, 3 large roundals (identical to the hanger part of the large pendant) and then the rest is made up of strap stiffners, connectors, buckles etc
All the peices still had large peices of leather attached to the backs......some of the stiffner parts were still attached in groups to their leather straps.......even the thread was visible

The archeologists think the most likely explanation of its burial was from loot from Colchester after Boudicca's sack of the city and then to hide it to avoid reprisals from the romans after she was defeated........apparently there was plenty of archaeological evidence for this so who am I to doubt them!

[Memmia]

WOW!!! :o

Thanks Jordan

[PhilusEstilius]

HI Jordan. I've been looking at your pictures and the top one and the bottom one interest me a great deal, what I notice is the round disc has what appear to be two holes that are very neatly positioned. Then what appears to be a metal plate that may have held a leather strap coming out at 90 degrees, would you say that there might also have been yet another metal plate at 90 degrees to that one for only the brackets on the back would determine this. I reproduce this kind of work as also does Cesar and I'm sure he would like myself delight in seeing a picture of this from the back, for these are the things that many of us never see when we go to museums. It's like many of us would just like to look inside of a helmet or see the reverse of beltplates and such other things. It's just wonderfull and that disc and it's leaf must be about 10cm each massive.

[History for all]

Hi

From what we could make out, the rivets through the pendant part were to put a leather backing to the pendant
Interestingly, these rivets appear to have been put through the silver foil - indicating they were put on after the making - maybe a modification or repair?
The rivets on the upper part i cant work out what they were used for, maybe also for leather backing but im not so sure
As for the metal plate, this was so the pendant could also serve as a strap connector. There is another that comes out (it was broken off but was found) at about 90 degrees
Unfortunately I dont have any pictures of the backs, but i can say is that they are identical to the backs of the Xanten find and drawings of these can be found in an article on the harness

On the subject of its publishing, this hasnt been done yet, but the museum says the have someone that is interested so in the future hopefully there will be

[PhilusEstilius]

I am now with you Jordan what I was thinking was that these rivets were holes, it's like an optical illusion now I see it so much better they are actually ball head rivets got you. Where you say they go thro' after the silvering that is interesting, obvious some kind of later work for some reason.

[PhilusEstilius]

AHHHHH I can now see where I was wrong, I simply read what you said to quickly it works out there are four rivets two in the leaf and two in the disc. This now helps to explain things better and I am now getting one very interesting idea tho' I could be wrong, with there only being one large pendant and the existing metal bracket at 90 degrees to the disc the other metal bracket had to be at 60 degrees to that bracket. Therefore I'll stick my neck out and say it was used as a Pectoral at the front of the horses chest, the two rivets put in at a later time in the leaf tells me that the leaf was chaffing the skin of the horse as it flopped around. Then of course the two metal brackets at 60 degrees hold the straps that go up to the front of the whithers or lower part of the horses neck, some of the strap stiffeners could have been used on these straps. In many cases the Pectoral would have been in the shape of a crecent, having measured this and being very English I'd say 8 inch's by 4 inch's is large for a pendant. This might be a very bold statement however let us see just how the cavelry guys might view it.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I was thinking that all along to be honest Brian.....not with any evidence mind you, other than what I can see. That size and the pendant make me think it was from the pectoral too (the front)

[garrelt]

Jordan thanks for the pictures.

[Peroni]

Jordan,

Thanks for posting the photographs. Any idea when the pieces will be displayed at Ipswich? I'm only 15 minutes away!

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

what a GREAT find!!!!!

beautiful!!

thanx for sharing!!!

M.VIB.M.

[History for all]

Thanks for all the comments

As regards its display date, i'm not sure.........not anytime soon anyway as it is in the process of being cleaned and smartened up!