Description

Summary: 1 bronze pennanular brooch, from Mildenhall, Wiltshire.

Research results

A copper alloy penannular brooch, from Mildenhall, Wiltshire. The brooch is of a form produced over a very wide chronological range, but which was most common in the first and early fourth centuries.

This brooch was examined by Anna Booth (2015) as part of her PhD on penannular brooches in Britain. This study compiled an updated corpus of brooches and was able to identify a number of new types and regional practices. Booth idenifies concentrations of penannulars in South-Western England and East Yorkshire, with her type F being local to Wiltshire and in particular the Avon valley. Penannulars first develop in the early Iron Age, but their use and variety of forms expanded rapisly in the first century AD, and unlike other Brooch forms do not decline in use in the third century, and rather become more popular extending into the fourth century, perhaps as deliberately selected as a "British" accessory in the context of increasingly regional dress styles in the late Roman period.