Description

Summary: A fragment of a glass armlet or bangle probably found at Meare, Somerset, with alternating yellow and green stripes.

Research results

A fragment of a glass armlet or bangle possibly found at Meare, Somerset, and acquired by the Museum in 1981, when it received the collections of the Marlborough College. Occupation of the Somerset lake villaged spanned the Iron Age and Early Roman periods, however, glass bangles are traditionally thought to post-date the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43.

This fragment has been examined by Ivleva (2020), who groups it together with similar fragments from Shepton Mallet and Meare East, both Somerset, and Nornour, Isles of Sheppey, as forming a potentially early group of glass bangles produced in East Somerset or the surrounding region. Ivleva argues that both Romano-British and Continental late Iron Age glass bangles are constructed using a winding and stretching method reminiscent of methods used in contemporary Nigerian communities. She argues that rather than being two distinct traditions British glass bangle production probably originates in the pre-Roman Iron Age, and that whilst no examples can be securely dated to this period, there is sufficient ambiguity around the dating of a number of examples that it should not be discounted.