Casgliadau Arlein

It is of two piece construction with a separate spring housed in a box like casing at the rear of the head. The casing itself has plain and beaded mouldings running along its length, both above and below, behind the head and it extends a short way beyond the head to either side. The head of the bow is trumpet shaped and is decorated with silver beading in the form of a penannular piece of silver wire, clamped round the head in a purpose moulded recess. The waist moulding itself is lost but the groove which accommodated the extant penannular ring of the beaded silver wire, which embellished it, is visible at the back of the bow. The waist ornament seems to have consisted of a circular flanged moulding projecting prominently to the front but allowing the silver orament to lie flush with the rear of the bow. The leg is badly damaged; it recurves towards the foot which seems like the waist moulding, to have consisted of a frontally projecting circular flange of unknown size. This brooch is not in the native British tradition. Instead is is an example of a Continental Trumpet brooch of acknowledged Kraftig Profilierte ancestry. From whatever outlying area of the north east frontier of the Roman Empire, and by whatever means, the Usk brooch reached the site, it was clearly highly prized by its owner and probably enjoyed a life of longer duration than many of its fellows. Certainly, at some point, damage to the spring or pin lead to the removal of the original spring, occasioning the loss of the rear face and severe damage to the remainder of the back of the box like housing. The damaged housing was adapted to accommodate a new, Polden Hill type spring, using what remained of the down turn of the upper face of the housing to secure the chord and perhaps drilling the square ends of the housing for an axis bar to the spring. The new spring is somewhat proud of the position the original would have occupied. The pit (HNS), from which the brooch came, is of the Fortress phase and was refilled on the final closure of the Fortress early in the Flavian period. The pottery from it would accord with this date, but, as we have seen, such a date would be distinctly early for a brooch of this type. However, the pit was a deep one and like most of the deep pits at Usk, the orignal contents had settled with time to create a depression which was filled at a later date; although to judge by the material from the tops of these pits, in most cases this was still within the Fortress's closure phase. The brooch in question came from very near the top of the pit and the layer above produced a samian stamp of C. Silvius Patricus who was active c. AD 75-100. It is also relevant that the pit was a short way from the Flavian fort. Under these circumstances the brooch could easily have been deposited in the Flavian-Trajanic period; the absence of more pottery of this date cannot be regarded as significant.