Casgliadau Arlein

Fragments of a tinned bronze plate brooch with bone roundel ornament. Sufficient remains to show that it was almost exactly similar to one from Wappenham, Northants, illustrated and described by Ward.

The brooch originally had a central roundel of bone attached in a circular recess by means of a knobbed rivet. Smaller bone roundels, part of one of which survives, were similarly attached in similar recesses around the field. Between each pair of roundels the bronze was ornamented with striations to give the effect of a feather or leaf with the tip projecting beyond the circumference of the brooch which itself followed the line of the roundels.

The brooch belongs to Feugere's Type 24f, a type of limited manufacture and uniform character which occurs in concentrations in Burgundy, Switzerland and Upper Germany and has a suggested source in the Saone valley. As well as listing the Continetal examples, Feugere lists four provenanced ones from Britain, all from the south-east and Hattatt discusses another from Northamptonshire. The Usk example is thus rather further west than the rest of the admittedly small sample so far known from Britain but it should be noted that the main distribution area of these brooches on the Continent lies in an area which has proved to be the major inspiration for some of the more popular forms of pottery manufactured at Usk in the fortress period.