Casgliadau Arlein

Fragmentary. Circular with now three, originally four, trianular extensions, between which there may have been further extensions of unknown shape. A bone roundel with a conical boss is secured in a circular recess in the centre of the brooch by a knobbed bronze rivet; the outer edge of the roundel is ridged and there is a concentric, perhaps beaded, ridge of bronze beyond, within the ciruclar recess. The surface of the brooch is ornamented with punched rings and the brooch was tinned or silvered beyond the central recessed area.

The brooch should be compared with an example from Chicester more complete than the Usk example, which comprises a circular brooch with four triangular extensions and intermediate bifurcated arms, with a central bone boss and subsidiary bosses at the corners of the triangles, the latter seem certainly to have been lacking in the Usk brooch.

Mackreth groups the Chichester example with other flat plate brooches, frequenly tinned or silvered, of various forms, disc-shaped, rhomboid, lunular, wheel shaped of mid first century AD date which have in common a central circular recess surrounded by an often beaded rim. Both the Chichester and Usk brooches are perhaps closest to Riha's Type 7.7 which has punched ornament and bone embellishmenst. But the occurence of another, smaller brooch from Vindonissa of the same form as those from Chichester and Usk and like the latter, lacking subsidiary bosses, suggests that three brooches may represent a sub group of their own.

Mackreth suggest a Claudian date for the overall type in Britain. That the sub group in question sometimes continued in use into the Neronian period is evidenced by its deposition at Usk.