Casgliadau Arlein

The end fragment of a decorative Roman era bone hairpin.

It is of Crummy's Tyoe 2 (Crummy, 1981, p21), which have a date of cAD 50 onwards. Four similar bone pins were recovered from the previous excavations at Whitton Villa reported on by Webster (1981b, p211, nos.1-4). They all had similar conical heads and single or multiple grooves around the collar.

The terminal is of faceted conical form, beneath it is decorated with two parallel horizontal grooves that wrap around the shaft. The panel between the grooves is decorated further with shallow diagonal cuts. One side of the decoration is cut cut two vertical grooves, set at a clear 90 degree angle to the wrapping grooves. It's unclear if they're meant to be part of the pattern.

The shaft is circular. The surface is not polished through use and wear.