Bears and Coins: The Iconography of Protection
in Late Roman Infant Burials
By NINA CRUMMY
ABSTRACT
A number of infant burials in Britain, both cremations and inhumations,
contained a consistent deposit of a small jet bear, black mineral jewellery, a coin,
and a pottery beaker. Some of the graves held several examples of these items, and
some a wider variety of objects. Comparison with more obviously amuletic grave deposits
from Butt Road, Colchester, and Lankhills, Winchester, suggests that the coins were
selected for their reverse image, and that both they and the bears are representations
of guardians placed in the burials to ensure that the child did not enter the underworld
alone and unprotected. These bears are set in the wider context of the animal s
iconography and mythology, with particular reference to the Greek cult of Artemis,
who oversaw childbirth and child-rearing. The choice and importance of materials
and the positions of objects within graves are also briefly explored and the social
identity of the dead infants is examined. In an appendix of other burials containing
jet animals, the Chelmsford hoard of jet jewellery is reinterpreted as grave goods from the inhumation of a young woman.
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INTRODUCTION
remendous variation exists in the burial
rites observed in excavated graves in Roman Britain. The choice of cremation or
inhumation was simply the first step, to be followed by the finer details of its
execution, and the selection and deposition of grave goods, if
any. In a cemetery used over a very long
period, broad changes in the rite can be observed over time, for example, a decline
in the use of grave goods and an increased use of inhumation in the late Roman period.
However, the observable differences in a single cemetery used for perhaps only 75-100
years tend to be concentrated in the choice of grave goods and this can be attributed
to the result of the wealth and status of the deceased and to other physical and
cultural considerations, such as gender, age, and the religious or superstitious
beliefs of the mourners. Just as differences exist between individual graves within
one cemetery, so close similarities in the choice of grave goods exist between individual
graves in different cemeteries, and it can be assumed that the same social considerations
apply for each of these burials. Often the similarity is simple and widespread,
such as the deposition of a single pot or a single coin, but it can be
© The Author(s) 2010. Published by The
Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.
much more complex, and the selection
of the same range of artefacts for individuals of much the same age implies that
a very specific set of conditions dictated the choice of grave goods.
A distinctive group of infant burials
from eastern Roman Britain containing one or more jet bear figurines, together with
one or more coins and one or more ceramic beakers, provided the initial inspiration
for this paper, but it soon became apparent that the choice of each coin was as
important as the choice of figurine. Increasing the dataset to include other child
graves with coins demonstrated that the reverse image could play a major part in
selection.
Coin reverse types are rarely considered
in any discussion of grave goods, even though figurative art was widely used in
the expression of Romano-British religious belief and any image found in a funerary
context should ideally be considered in much the same way as an ex voto found at a sanctuary, that is, as
a symbol of the beliefs, sentiments and aspirations of the depositor. Coins placed
in burials as Charon's fee fulfil their monetary function in symbolic fashion and
are a recognised and accepted example of a link between religion and coinage. 1
It will be demonstrated below that other coins in burials were used as amulets,
setting them apart from both real and symbolic monetary units.
THE BURIAL GROUPS
The burials have been divided into two
groups: those of young infants containing a jet bear figurine or figurines, and
those of infants or older children containing amulets and/or coins, the latter often
pierced and sometimes antique. Material closely related to each group is described
in the Appendices.
GROUP 1: BURIALS CONTAINING A JET BEAR
FIGURINE
Five infant burials in eastern Roman Britain
(three of them in Colchester) have produced six jet bears (Table 1). Four of the
graves also contained at least one jet bead and one coin, and three of the four
held a small beaker.2 One burial was more richly furnished, but the grave goods
had similar general characteristics; they included glass and frit beads, but none
of black mineral, five coins and three beakers, as well as other items. A seventh
bear has been found at York but not in a burial. Two jet bears are also known from
Germany, one from Cologne and one from Trier; the latter was found in a child burial.
These finds and the associated dating evidence are summarised below and in Appendix
1.
Colchester, Abbey Field: 2000.1, Area
A, Feature 25
The Roman cemetery area of Abbey Field
lies on a plateau to the south of the town.3 Excavated early in 2000, AF25 consists
of the cremation burial of a child in a nailed wooden box about 0.3 by 0.35 m in
plan and at least 0.2 m high, together with a later third- or fourth-century small
Toynbee 1971, 44, 49. Philpott (1991,
215-16) suggested that in Roman Britain rather more complex beliefs may have lain
behind this classical practice.
2
Some explanation of terms is necessary
here. The accurate identification and sourcing of black minerals such as jet, shale,
and cannel coal is dependent upon scientific analysis (Allason-Jones 1996, 5-7).
This analysis has not been undertaken for most of the objects discussed here, which
are, therefore, described by the terms used in the original publications. For the
human bone, where possible, age is provided by skeletal evidence, but where bone
has not survived, for inhumations it has been assessed by the size of the grave
pit or coffin and for cremations the cautious term 'infant' is used. Although this
may cover children from birth to three years, many here were probably less than
one year old. For Lankhills, age and gender details come from revised data supplied
by Rebecca Gowland of Durham University; the data in Clarke 1979 is used for some
burials that she could not examine.
3 Colchester
Archaeological Trust Report 138, http://cat.essex.ac.uk/reports/CAT-report-0138.pdf
TABLE I. GRAVE GOODS FROM GROUP I BURIALS
Grave Age Jet Jet Other Glass Other Coin(s) Pottery Glass Other bear(s) bead(s)
black beads jewellery beaker(s)
flask
mineral jewellery
Colchester, Abbey ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ../
Field AF25
Colchester, Abbey infant ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ silver Field C2 Fl66 lunula
pendant, pottery jar
Colchester, Joslin ../ ../ ../ ../
87/14
Malton infant ../ ../ ../ ../
York, Bootham ../ ../ ../ ../
Trier, St Matthias G87 - ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ceramic
face- mask
pentice-moulded colour-coat beaker, form
CAM 395, probably a Nene Valley product (FIG. 1, l), two coins (FIG. 1, 2), and
a pile of jewellery. The two coins are much worn, second-century sestertii, one
of Faustina II with reverse of Spes (c. A.D. 146-161) and one of Antoninus Pius
with reverse of the Roman she-wolf suckling the twins Romulus and Remus (c. A.D.
140--143/4).4 The jewellery consists of a necklace of subtly graduated interlocking
jet beads (FIG. l , 3), a plain shale bracelet, a copper-alloy cable bracelet (FIG.
1, 4), and a bracelet made up of threaded glass and jet cylinder beads and two tiny
jet bears (FIG. 1, 5a-e). The single glass bead was turquoise in colour and had
shattered beyond repair in situ. Four
necklaces similar to that from Abbey Field are known from Britain: from York, Chelmsford,
London, and the Butt Road cemetery at Colchester. Interlocking beads of the same
form have also been found at Wroxeter and thirteen were incorporated into a bead
bracelet or necklace found at Cologne. All belong to the fourth century, with the
Chelmsford necklace dated to the first half of the century (see Appendix 1) and
the Butt Road one probably to the second half.5
The bears are 11 and 14 mm long, with
the hole separating the right and left forelegs and hind legs used as the thread
hole (FIG. 1, bottom). Each stands on a small platform. They are carved in the act
of walking, with the head of one swinging to the left, the other to the right. The
style of the carving is quite rudimentary and angular, but the characteristic form
and movement of the animals are clearly conveyed.
Colchester, Abbey Field: 2004.96, Area
C2, Feature 166
In 2004 a further
excavation on a nearby area of Abbey Field was undertaken as part of the Garrison Urban Village redevelopment. 6 Cremation C2 F 166 was
an infant burial that contained three beakers
and a black burnished ware (BB2) jar (FIG. 2, 8-11), five coins (FIG. 2, 6-7), a
blue glass bead with white marvered zigzag trail (FIG. 2, 1), two small frit melon
beads (FIG. 2, 2), a silver finger-ring set with a carnelian intaglio (FIG. 2, 3),
a silver lunula pendant
For clarity, coin reverses shown in the
figures are generic rather than specific.
RCHME I962, 70, 143; Allason-Jones 1996, 26, no. 7, fig. I5; 2002, 131; Henig and
Wickenden 1988, fig. 73,
14a-15; Going 1988, 49; Hagen 1937, 123,
Type 015, Taf. 27, Abb. 1, top left; A. Wardle, pers. comm., necklace found in
London in 2002; N. Crummy 1983, nos 807-900;
N. Crummy et al. 1993, tables 2.55 and
2.67, Grave 69.
6 Colchester
Archaeological Trust, report in preparation.
(FIG. 2, 4), a bone finger-ring, and a
jet bear figurine (FIG. 2, 5). The glass
bead and one of the melon beads were closely associated in the grave with small
rings, one of silver and one of copper alloy. The beads, rings, finger-rings, pendant
and figurine may have been strung together and/or deposited in a bag together with
two of the coins (FIG. 3), both sestertii of Faustina II, one with reverse Matri Magnae showing Cybele enthroned, and
the other Venus. Three antoniniani were found with the pots, two of Claudius II
(Gothicus), one with reverse Genius Exerci
and the other Virtus Aug, and one
of Gallienus with reverse Marti Pacifero.
Each had been placed in the grave with the reverse uppermost. The group of pots
ranges in date from the mid-third to the mid-fourth century. The beakers are all
in different fabrics, Nene Valley ware (FIG. 2, 8; form CAM 408-410), Rhenish ware
(FIG. 2, 9; Symonds Trier form P)
Symonds 1992.
4 5
6 7
not shown:
fragmentary bone ring 
and
small metal rings
FIG. 2. Grave deposits from burial CF166, Abbey Field,
Colchester. Scale I :2, except coins, not to scale. (Nos 1-4 and 8-11from drawings by E. Spurgeon, Colchester Archaeological
Trust)
and local grey ware (FIG. 2, I O; copy
of CAM 395); the barbotine decoration on the Rhenish beaker includes the word BIBE.
FIG. 3. Plan
of burial CF166 from
Abbey Field, Colchester. (From a drawing
by E. Spurgeon, Colchester
Archaeological Trust)
The bear is 38 mm long and stands on a
small platform; in places the head and body are grooved to indicate the shaggy pelt,
with the hump receiving particular emphasis. The animal is shown eating a pile of
fruit (FIG. 4).
Colchester, Joslin Collection 87/14
George Joslin was a nineteenth-century
antiquarian and amateur archaeologist whose private collection was acquired by Colchester
Museum on its foundation. The grave groups in the Joslin Collection are not wholly
reliable, for the vessels were often separated out from the other objects. Grave
Group 87/14 appears to be uncontaminated as the objects are consistent with those
from the other jet bear graves from the town. It is composed of an indented colour-coat
beaker (FIG. 5,
FIG. 4. Jet bear
from burial CF166,
Abbey Field, Colchester. Scale approximately
3:1. (Image © Colchester Archaeological Trust; photograph E.
Spurgeon)
·1), three jet cylinder beads (FIG. 5, 2), a jet ring, too large to be a finger-ring
(FIG. 5, 3), a jet bracelet (FIG. 5, 4), and a jet bear figurine (FIG. 5, 5). No
precise information is available as to the location of the grave itself, but it
is likely to have lain west of the town in the area that was being developed at
the time that Joslin was forming his collection. If any bones were recovered they
have long since been lost. May dated the group to A.O. 140-190, but it is clearly
later.8 Most of the graves in the western cemetery along modem Lexden Road are early
Roman, but late Roman burials are known from closer to the town, at Maldon Road
and Butt Road in particular.
The bear is 28 mm long. It stands on a
small platform and is of a smooth, static style (FIG. 5, bottom). It is perforated
vertically through the hump of the shoulders and has grooves radiating outwards
from the hole.
York, Bootha°'
A grave group, found in 1845 during work
at Bootham on the York to Scarborough railway, consisted of a jet bear (FIG. 6,
top), a jet lunette bead of the same type as those on a bracelet from Chelmsford
T9 (FIG. 6, bottom; see Appendix 1), a follis of Constantine I, reverse So/i Invicto Comiti (A.O. 312-315; Cohen
536), and a small Castor ware beaker. The group is now in the Bateman Collection
in Museums Sheffield.9 The objects were supposedly found in the beaker, but the
Victorian workman who found them may have emptied the pot so that it could be used
to
May 1928, 277, pl. 86.
Brushfield 1853; Howarth 1899, 228; Corder
1948, 174, pis 25, b and 26, e-f. The bear is mistakenly described as coming from
Bootle, Lanes., in M. Green 1992, 217.
FIG. 5. Colchester,
Joslin Collection grave group 87I14. Scale: drawings I :2; photograph approximately
3: I. (Image
© Colchester and Ipswich Museums; photograph A.-M Bojko)
carry them. No bones, cremated or otherwise,
were reported. The bear stands slightly crouched on a small platform with its head
swung to the right. There is a hole surrounded by radiating grooves passing through
the shoulders like that on the Colchester Joslin Collection bear and a hole passing
from front to back between the legs to allow it to be worn as an amulet, as on the
Colchester Abbey Field AF25 bears. It is 20 mm long.
Malton, north-east cemetery
Excavations in 1929 by Dr J.L. Kirk outside
the north-east gate of the Roman fort at Malton, Yorks., uncovered 32 infant burials.
One corpse had been buried with a plain copper-alloy bracelet, a denarius of Caracalla
dated A.O. 215-218, an annular jet bead,
20 mm in diameter, and a jet bear figurine, 23 mm long. 10 The excavation has not
been published and the grave group can
IO Corder
1948, 173-4, pl. 25, a, pl. 26, c-d; Mattingly 1930, 89, no. 39; Toynbee 1962, no.
135.
FIG. 6. The jet
bear and Junette bead from Bootham, York, as drawn by the artist and antiquarian
Llewellyn Jewitt in Howarth 1899, 228. Scale
approximately 2:1. (Image © Museums Sheffield)
unfortunately no longer be reassembled.
11 Corder described a few of the finds in a note published in 1948. The bear is
very worn and lacks its feet and platform; it is 24 mm long (FIG. 7, 1).
Trier, St Matthias, Grave 87
A late Roman grave group consisting of
a jet bear, a jet finger-ring, a bone hairpin with pine-cone
·head, two segmented beads (probably bottle-
or bag-shaped as only the top sphere is pierced), a small glass bath flask, and
a female face-mask with diadem in a white ceramic fabric.12 The bear is 18 mm long
and similar in style to the Abbey Field and Malton bears and to that from Cologne
described below. The animal is shown in motion, the head swinging to the left (FIG.
7, 2). It was destroyed, together with the face-mask, during World War 11.13
Related material
Appendix 1 lists a number of other jet
animals, including a second bear from York and one from Cologne. Some of these animals
may be disturbed grave deposits, most particularly the Cologne bear, which is 18
mm long (FIG. 7, 3). A copper-alloy bear cub from a presumed child or infant grave
in Cologne is also described. No burials were found at the St Stephen's site on
Fishergate that produced the second York bear, which is very worn (FIG. 8), but
the finds assemblage suggests ritual activity on the site and it may have been a
votive deposit. At 17.5 mm long and 15.5 mm high it is very compact but comparatively
tall. 14
11
Information from Mr F. Wiggle, Malton
Museum Foundation.
12 Hagen
1937: bear, 139, no. J2 2, Taf. 29, Abb. I, right; ring, Taf. 19, l; Corder 1948,
174-5, pl. 25, c; Goethert Polaschek 1977, 241, 323, no. 285.
13
Information from Dr S. Faust, Rheinisches
Landesmuseum Trier.
14
Hilary Cool and Ruth Leary, pers.
comm.
FIG. 7. The jet
bears from burials at (1) Malton, (2) Trier, and (3) Cologne. Scale approximately
3:1. (No. 1 after Corder 1948, nos 2-3 after
Hagen 1937)
GROUP 2: GRAVES WITH COINS AND/OR AMULETS
Five graves from Butt Road, Colchester
and one from Lankhills, Winchester, form Group 2. Four of the graves contain pierced
coins and all contain amulets. The Group 1 grave C2 F166 from Abbey Fild, Colchester,
would also sit comfortably within this selection. The related material in Appendix
2 consists of other grave deposits from both sites, and some coins from funerary
features on other sites.
Colchester, Butt Road, Grave 278
The Butt Road cemetery site lies outside
the south-west gate of the Roman town. In the early fourth century (Period 1 Phase
3) the area was used for north-south-aligned burials; in Period 2, beginning c. A.D. 320/40, the alignment of the burials
switched to east-west and a cemetery church was built.
Grave 278 was one of a large group of
Period 1 Phase 3 graves containing a high proportion of child burials. No bones
survived, but its size was appropriate for an infant. Beneath the collapsed
FIG. 8. The jet bear from the St Stephen's site, Fishergate,
York. Scale 4: 1. (Image © York Archaeological Trust)
west wall of the coffin lay a corroded
mass of small copper-alloy rings or links fused together by iron corrosion products.
This mass contained a copper-alloy bell (FIG. 9, 1), a homed phallus
(FIG. 9, 2), a pierced dog's canine tooth
(FIG. 9, 3), an amber head of an Ethiopian or pygmy (FIG.
· 9, 4), an as of Hadrian (A.O. 117-138) mounted in a silver frame
to display the reverse of the emperor mounted carrying a spear (FIG. 9, 5), a pierced
copy of an as of Claudius I (A.O. 43-54) with Minerva reverse (FIG. 9, 6), and a
pierced denarius of Julia Maesa (A.O. 218-225), reverse Pudicitia (FIG. 9, 7).1s
Colchester,
Butt Road, Grave 94
Near the west end of this Period 2 infant
or child burial, probably close to the head, lay a short length of iron chain on
which were suspended two copper-alloy bells. 16
Colchester,
Butt Road, Grave 503
In Period 2 a young infant, found in a
coffin about 0.7 m long and 0.3 m wide, had been buried wearing two necklaces made
of long jet cylinder beads and five bracelets of jet and shale, all on the left
arm; a group of five jet beads and three other objects, all probably strung together,
was deposited in a pouch or bag placed near or in the left hand (FIG. 10, A). The
amulets consisted of a worn copper-alloy disc (too uniformly thin to have been a
coin), an iron finger-ring, and a coin
15
N. Crummy 1983, nos 1802-5, 1811;
1987, 82; N. Crummy et al. 1993, 41; Henig
1984a; Kenyon 1987, 31.
16 N.
Crummy 1983, 1809-10; N. Crummy et al. 1993,
155.
Colchester,
Butt Road, Grave 15
This Period 2 grave was of a young infant
buried with a glass jug placed inside the coffin at the head end and two bracelets
placed near the right shoulder (FIG. 10, B). One bracelet was of iron with bands
of tinned or silvered copper alloy at intervals, and with an annular bead of greenish
glass threaded on between two of the bands. The other was a loose string of seven
beads and two coins. Three beads were amber, one green glass, one blue glass, and
two black glass. The coins were of the House of Valentinian, reverse Gloria Romanorum (A.D. 364-378), and were
much worn. They date the grave to the very late fourth or early fifth century, supported
by the stratigraphy and the presence of black glass beads, which did not reach Britain
from workshops in Germany until that time. is
17 N.
Crummy 1983, nos 617-22, 1794, 1807; 1987, 82; N. Crummy et al. 1993, 118, 137, 139, 141, fig. 2.76, f, tables
2.52, 2.55, 2.62, 2.67.
18
N. Crummy 1983, nos 555, 559, 634-5,
960, 990, 1505, and 1738; 1987, 82; N. Crummy et al. 1993, 141, tables
2.52, 2.61, 2.62, 2.67; Cool and Price
1995, no. 1164; Guido 1999, 18.
FIG. 10. A: Grave
503, Butt Road,
Colchester. B: Grave
15, Butt Road, Colchester.
(Images
© Colchester
Archaeological Trust)
Colchester, Butt Road, Grave 406
In this grave an infant or young child
had been buried with a string of beads and other objects, all placed inside the
coffin at the west end. The other items were a pierced coin of Valens, reverse Securitas Reipublicae (A.D. 367-375), and
a silver lunula pendant. No bone remained, but comparison with the positions of
similar strings and groups of jewellery suggests it lay near the head. Three beads
were of blue glass, one of yellow glass, two of jet, five of amber. As with Grave
15, the coin evidence dated Grave 406 to the end of Period 2, the last third of
the fourth or the early fifth century. 19
Winchester, Lankhills, Grave 450
The Roman cemetery at Lankhills lies to
the north-west of the Roman town, on the east side of the Winchester-Cirencester
road. It forms part of the extensive cemetery complex between that road and the
Winchester-Silchester road further to the east. Lankhills contained a number of
infant burials of which Grave 450 was the only one to contain overtly amuletic items.
A coffined inhumation of a child aged six to nine months, it was dated stratigraphically
to A.D. 3910 and contained two pierced canines, probably of dog or wolf, and fragments
of pewter and glass that were all that remained of a pewter pendant with glass inset
similar to examples from Ickham, Kent, and Oudenburg, Belgium.20
INTERPRETATION
A number of artefact groups appear in
the data above: bears, pottery beakers, coins, jewellery, and a variety of amulets.
All are resonant with more complex religious and cultural meaning, consistently
building up the iconography of protection, including victory over death and resurrection.
Their underlying import is explored below, briefly in the case of well-known amuletic items such
as the lunulae and bells, more expansively for bears and coin reverses, neither
of which have previously been examined in detail in a funerary context; these two
latter subjects are then developed in the discussion section into two themes that
come together in a single conclusion. The reasons for the selection of materials
and the location of objects within inhumation burials are also examined here, drawing
upon information from the related material described in the Appendices where appropriate.
BEAKERS
The almost consistent presence of beakers
in the graves containing jet bears relates to the age of the dead children. Beakers
in themselves carry no particular religious meaning, but as drinking vessels and
containers of liquids they are appropriate for infants and, given the rarity of
tettines as site finds, were probably the first ceramic vessel used on a daily basis
by most children. The motto BIBE on one of the vessels in Abbey Field C2 F166 is
particularly apposite in the context of a parent urging a child to take nourishment.
19 N. Crummy 1983, nos 547, 556-8, 647-9, 956,
1419-20, 1447, 1806; 1987, 82; N. Crummy et
al. 1993, 141, tables
2.54, 2.62, 2.67.
2° Clarke 1979, 296-7, table 2, fig. 63, fig. 100,
G450, 611-13.
LUNULAE AND PHALLI
The silver lunulae in Abbey Field C2 F166
and Butt Road G406, and the lunula combined with a phallus in Butt Road G278, are
unmistakable protective devices in both apotropaic and chthonic contexts. The homed
phallus combines male and female fertility symbols to produce doubly powerful protection
against misfortune and evil, and the silver lunulae may also have been doubly effective
for they mimic not only the shape of the crescent moon but also its colour. The
crescent moon is an early sky symbol and its use as an amulet can be tracked back
to Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C. At first probably used by women as
a symbol of and for the menstrual cycle and fertility, like the phallus (see below)
it later became a general prophylactic against evil.21 Used in this way it is well-represented in Roman
Britain. Brooches employing the motif are
found in the first
and second centuries, and lunula pendants are sometimes found as site finds, often associated
with military equipment, many pieces of which also incorporated the homed moon into
their designs. In the classical pantheon the moon is the emblem of Artemis-Diana,
but it is also personified as Luna (Selene), an image that appears, appropriately,
on first-century picture lamps. Each of the gold necklaces in the Hackworth hoard
has a crescent moon pendant as well as a solar wheel symbol, a silver necklace from
Newstead also has a wheel and a crescent, and similar silver crescents and wheels
were among the items in the Snettisham treasure from Norfolk. Wheels and crescents
were also used as votive offerings at sanctuary sites both here and in Roman Gaul.
The wheel represents daytime and rebirth; the crescent as a waning moon represents
night and death, as a waxing moon regeneration. Lunula amulets appear on pipeclay
mother-goddess figurines made in the Rhineland,
strengthening their fertility and chthonic aspects, and also on the pipeclay busts
of infants or small children, which demonstrates their protective purpose. They
were an important feature of a Roman girl's costume, referred to as early as Plautus
(c. 254-184 B.C.) and as late as Isidore
of Seville (c. A.D.
560-636).22
The phallus as a protective image permeated
Roman life, occurring on a wide range of objects from wall plaques to small amulets,
lamps to wall paintings. All were ways of averting the evil eye, rather than charms
to ensure sexual potency. Young boys in Republican Rome wore phallic amulets to
guard them from danger as they grew up, and small gold rings with a phallus on the
bezel from London and Faversham must belong to this tradition, as well as a small
gold pendant from Braintree.23 Phallic imagery is rather less pervasive in Britain
than in Italy, but the association with children remains, and it also frequently
occurs on sites connected with the Roman army and on horse-gear that may be either
military or civilian.24
Fist-and-phallus amulets combine both
male and female protective devices, as the fist represents the vulvate symbol of
the fig-hand (manoflea ) gesture, the
thumb protruding between the middle and forefinger. Five copper-alloy fist-and-phallus
amulets were buried with an infant at Catterick, perhaps a foundation deposit for
a temenos, and another example was found
in the
21 Zadoks-Josephus
Jitta and Witteveen 1977, esp. 173.
22 Curle
1911, pl. 74, 4; Hawkes and Hull 1947, pl. 98, 170-3; Feugere 1985, Type 24d; Hattatt
1989, fig. 202, 141,
511, 1006, 1023, fig. 214, 600-1, 1421,
1614, fig. 215, 605, 1420, fig. 217, 597, 1146; Allason-Jones 1991, fig. 112, 97;
Bishop 1998, fig. 25, 286; Loeschcke 1919,
Taf. 6, 370; Bailey 1988, fig. 19; Eckardt 2002, 371; Charlesworth 1961, 20-1,
pis 1-2; Johns 1997, catalogue nos 317-22;
Brunaux 1988, 93; Bourgeois 1999, fig. 71, 386, fig. 74, 450; Deschler-Erb et
al. 1996, 119, Taf. 19,
269; Bagnall Smith 1995, 195; van Boeke! 1987, 99, 102, 653-7; M. Green 1993, 194-6,
fig. 3, I;
Olson 2008, 144.
23 Johns 1982, 61-75, where the protective
symbolism is shown most clearly by a figurine of two personified phalli sawing an
eye in half (fig. 51); Johns 1996b, fig. 1.3; Johns and Wise 2003; Varro, de Lingua Latina 7.97; Henig 1984b, fig.
92.
24 For example: Hawkes and Hull 1947,
pl. 100, 20; Webster 1958, fig. 5, 84-5; Greep 1983; 1994; for a detailed discussion
of the phallus, the lunula and bells used protectively on horse gear see Nicolay
2007, 226f.
same area.25 In Butt Road G278 the phallus
is integrated with the female symbol of a homed moon, thereby similarly increasing
its effectiveness. The combination also occurs on cavalry harness pendants, sometimes
again with the mano flea, and one lunula
harness pendant from Zugmantel has a suspension ring (part of the original casting)
on its outer edge from which has been hung a phallic amulet with central suspension
loop. Some phallic amulets with a central suspension loop are crescentic and represent
the most economic means of combining both images.26 A further example of phallic
imagery in G278 may occur on the amber head (see below).
HUMAN HEAD
The amuletic importance of the amber head,
which is unique in Roman Britain, must be based on both its material and its form.
Pliny notes several facts about amber, of which the most pertinent here are its
electro-static properties, which must have appeared quite magical, its high cost,
its use for protective amulets for babies, and that, worn on a necklace, it was
a remedy for fever.27 The rarity of amber objects in Roman Britain would add to
the perceived magico medical properties of the head from Butt Road G278. Henig
thought it an Aquileian product of the early Empire that represents an Ethiopian
or pygmy, and that its prominent nose may be intended to be phallic. If it is Aquileian
it would, like the coins in the grave, be an antique or an heirloom, but it may
not be much older than the grave itself. It is undamaged, has no noticeable wear
at the perforation, is quite crudely fashioned compared with the high quality of
most of the Aquileian assemblage, and so may well be a later piece made in Germany
or Gaul. Similar heads of late Roman date occur in jet in Germany and Belgium, one
of which, from Coninxheim, is particularly close to the Butt Road piece.2s
PIERCED CANINE TEETH
Pliny notes that a black dog's tooth could
be used as a febrifuge, and that a wolf's tooth helped with teething problems and
nightmares in a child. In sympathetic magic this is an example of like to combat
like, with a dog worrying a bone matching the restlessness of a feverish patient.
Clarke proposed an Anglo-Saxon origin for the Lankhills G450 teeth (and by association
for the child), but both Pliny's observations and archaeological finds show that
this need not be correct.29 Pierced animal teeth are certainly well-attested in
Anglo-Saxon contexts, but they also occur much earlier in Britain, for example at
Skara Brae and with Late Bronze Age material in the Heathery Bum Cave, while pierced
dog/wolf/fox teeth occur in Romano-British contexts dating from the first to the
fourth century at, for example, Baldock, Chichester, Witham, Foxton, Aldborough
and Castleford, as well as G278 at Colchester.30 The Chichester tooth comes from a well-furnished
grave and seems to have been part of a bead string. A bear tooth found in a
25 Lentowicz
2002, 68, fig. 260; Wilson 2002, 469.
26 Hawkes
and Hull 1947, pl. 103, 17; Webster 1958, fig. 5, 83, 85, fig. 8, 224; Bishop 1988,
figs 46-7; Oldenstein 1976, Taf. 45, 446.
27 Pliny,
Hist. Nat. 37.48-51; Strong 1966, 10-12;
Brown and Henig 1977, 33.
28
Hagen 1937, Taf. 29, Abb. 2-3; Henig
1984a; Calvi 2005, 10-15; Strong 1966, 8-10. Early Roman amber objects are of very
high quality and rare in Britain. Two from Carlisle, a finger-ring with a head of
Minerva and a knife-handle with the terminal in the form of a mouse eating a seed
or nut, imply that amber at this period was brought to Britain not by trade but
by the movement of individuals, particularly soldiers: Henig and Padley 1982; McCarthy
et al. 1983.
29 Pliny,
Hist. Nat. 28.257; 30.98; Clarke 1979,
296-7; Philpott 1991, 162.
30 Meaney
1981, 131, 134--6; Childe 1931, 149; Greenwell 1894, 95; Megaw and Simpson 1979,
fig. 6.34, 22; Stead
and Rigby 1986, fig. 72, 6; Down and Rule
1971, 113, 115, fig. 5.17, 228n; Luff 1999, 217; Price et al. 1997, fig. 66, 11;
Bishop 1996, 8, fig. 4, 13; Greep 1998,
279, fig. 122, 152.
cabinet at Pompeii highlights the medicinal
use of animal teeth, and dog, bear and lion tooth pendants have been found at
Augst. Ross has suggested, with particular reference to a pierced bear's canine
from Chesters, Northumberland, that they may also have been used as hunting charms,
but this is not appropriate in the context of infant burials. 31
Most pierced teeth are perforated at one
end, but those from Lankhills and Castleford have the hole in the centre and so,
when suspended, their curved shape would be emphasised. This may be a deliberate
attempt to stress the dog's underworld associations by reference to the
crescent moon (see 'Lunulae' above). The dog in Romano-Celtic religion has a chthonic
aspect as the guide and guardian of the soul on its journey between life and death,
often being associated with the three Mothers, the horse-goddess Epona, Sequana
and Sucellus, as well as with healing deities such as Apollo, Nodens and Asclepius.32
In addition, the path to the underworld was guarded by the triple-headed Cerberus,
and the association is further stressed by a figurine of a wolf-god devouring a
man found near Oxford. Dogs have sometimes been killed and placed in graves to accompany
children to the afterlife, or a model dog might be used instead. At Lankhills one
dog was buried on an empty coffin and a second had been dismembered, its backbone
tied to form a circle, then added to the grave fill.33 Dogs were not only used as
funerary deposits but were also sacrificed, singly or in groups, and placed in
shafts, pits and wells as dedicatory offerings or closure offerings; in Britain
this practice predates the Roman period. Some infants accompanied by dogs were buried
in shafts, blurring the division between funerary and dedicatory. The intercessory
role of the animal can also be seen in the deposition of dog-shaped bone amulets
at the sanctuary of Sequana at the sources of the Seine.34
The tooth amulets in the infant graves
at Lankhills and Butt Road may be examples of local magic using similar beliefs
to that of Pliny's febrifuge, and they may also be representative of the dog as
the companion of healing deities, many of whom also had power in the underworld.
The dual aspect of the dog companion implies that the amulets were used prophylactically
during the last illness of the children at Lankhills and Colchester, and then to
represent a protective canine guide on their journey to the afterlife.
BELLS AND OTHER NOISE-MAKING OBJECTS
Making noise was used in the ancient world
to drive away evil, as seen in the use of cymbals, rattles and crotales during the
worship of Isis and Bacchus, and of mobile charms ( tintinnabuli) in domestic houses, the latter combining bells with
other apotropaic images, such as phalli. Ovid described the priests of Cybele in
religious procession playing flutes, beating on drums and striking cymbal against
cymbal to produce tinkling sounds (tinnitus).
One plate from a large pair of cymbals, 180 mm across, was found in the Temple
of Cybele at Neuss (Nordrhein-Westfalen), a pair only 110 mm across at Pompeii,
and two small finger cymbals, only 45 mm across, from the burial of a juvenile at
Colchester; the latter may have been the type meant by Ovid.35
The use of bells as protective devices
was widespread. Like the lunula and phallus they occur on both military and civilian
horse-trappings, together with jangles of various forms.36 Fifty-
31 Ciarallo
and De Carolis 1999, no. 67; Riha 1990, Taf. 32, 728, 730-1; Ross 1967, 349.
32 M.
Green 1997a, 176-8; 1997b, 175-6.
33 Fremersdorf
1928, Taf. 116; Jenkins 1957, 62-5; Toynbee 1971, 50; Pitts 1979, pl. 23, 144; Clarke
1979, 421-3,
table 2, Grave 400; Webster 1986, 78;
Philpott 1991, 204; Allain et al. 1992,
95, nos 82-83-C24.
34 Jenkins
1957, 65; Black 1983; Merrifield 1987, 46-7, 67; M. Green 1997b, 175-6; Alexander
and Pullinger 1999, 45-7, 53-4; Fulford 2001, 203, 205, 209, 211-12.
35 Ward-Perkins
and Claridge 1976, nos 196-7, 216; Johns 1982, pis 13-14, figs 52, 54; Simpson 2000,
54, pl. 16, 10;
N. Crummy 2004.
36 Brewer
1986, 181, no. 132; Chapman 2005, 151, Wd01-Wd03; Nicolay 2007, 233, fig. 6.12,
15.
eight small bells used as votive deposits
were found in the sanctuary at Les Bolards, Nuits Saint-Georges (Cote d'Or), and
bells with a melon bead fixed inside were buried as threshold foundation deposits
in buildings in Colchester and Scole, Norfolk.37 In several instances bells have
been found with the graves of children. In the Roman catacombs they were set into
the mortar sealing children's tombs, a protective device which appears to be particularly
common in the fourth century but must have originated much earlier, as a small bell
was found with the cremation of a perinatal infant dated to the late first or early
second century in the cemetery at Valladas, St-Paul-Trois-Chiiteaux (Drome).38
The bell in Butt Road Grave 278 undoubtedly
served the same purpose. The pair of bells on the iron chain in Grave 94 and the
bell on an armlet in Grave 1 (Appendix 2) can be seen in the same light. In a wider
sense the copper-alloy disc on the armlet in Butt Road Grave 503, all the pierced
and suspended coins, the pendant amulets, beads and finger-rings may all have doubled
as noise-making devices. Some, such as the amber head and the ceramic face mask
in the Trier grave (Table 1), fall into the class of objects known as crepundia, amuletic miniatures or curiosities
that were collected and highly prized by young girls. They were often strung together
or stored in a small box and would have made interesting noises when shaken or rolled
around, with varying actions altering the quality of the sound. As crepundia comes from crepare, to rattle or clatter, using them
in this way must have been an integral part of both their charm and their effectiveness.
39
BEADS AND FINGER-RINGS
Both object types are more readily categorised
as jewellery than amulets, but in the context of these graves they add yet further
weight to the mass of protective deposited material. Given the careful selection
of other items in both Group 1 and Group 2 graves, similar attention was surely
given to the choice of beads. The amber used for the human head and the silver used
for the lunulae add to their apotropaic impact, but substances like amber and jet
would have been effective just as beads, and coloured glass beads, through their
similarity to gemstones, may also have been credited with medicinal and amuletic
properties. Pliny notes that jet cured tooth-ache and had a beneficial effect upon
scrofula when combined with wax; its fumes could alleviate hysterics, detect epilepsy
and could be used to test virginity. Solinus observed that like amber it was electrostatic.
A large jet bead from the grave of a British healer at Stanway was probably both
professional equipment and dress accessory.40
Cool considers that in north Britain in
the late Roman period certain materials or colours seemed to take on increasing importance, with white/cream bone
and ivory bracelets, red ceramic counters and spindlewhorls, and black glass, jet,
or shale finger-rings occurring regularly in contexts dating to the late Roman transition;
Allason-Jones suggests that in the very late fourth and early fifth centuries black
glass was credited with the same powers as jet.41 The occurrence of bone, silver,
jet and carnelian in Abbey Field C2 Fl66 supports the former and Table 2 supports
the latter, with black glass occurring in some graves at Butt Road and black mineral
Get and/or shale) in others. Green glass beads could be used as subsitutes for
emeralds, so might yellow glass have been a substitute for amber, credited with
the same powers?42 Both
37 Pommeret
2001, 366-9; N. Crummy 1992, 186-7; Seeley 1995.
38 Nuzzo 2000, 252-3; Feugere 2002.
39 Martin-Kilcher
2000, 66-7.
40 Pliny,
Hist. Nat. 36.141-2; Solinus, Collectanea 22.11; Strong 1966, 11; Allason-Jones
1996, 5-17; P. Crummy et al. 2007, 217.
41 Cool
2000, 50, 54; Guido 1999, 18;Allason-Jones 2005, 185.
42 Johns
1996b, 98-9.
TABLE 2. MATERIAL OF GRAVE GOODS FROM
GROUP 2 GRAVES AT BUTT ROAD, COLCHESTER
Grave
Age Date Coin(s) Tooth Amber Black Black Other glass Copper
Silver
Iron
mineral glass alloy
G278 infant 300/20-320/40 ./ ./ ./ ./ ./ ?
G503 young 320/40-330/50 ./ ./ ./ ./
infant
G15 infant/ late 4th-early 5th ./ ./ ./ ./ (green, ./ ./ ./
child century blue)
G406 infant/ late 4th-early 5th ./ ./ ./ ./ (blue, ./ ./ ./
child century yellow)
GI 10
years late 4th-early 5th ./ ./ ./ ./
(green, ./ ./ ./
century blue,
polychrome)
are rare in late Roman contexts, offering
little chance for a similar pattern to emerge, and both occur in Butt Road Grave
406.
When more than one glass bead was placed
in the Butt Road graves they were invariably of more than one colour. The colours
may have been important individually, or perhaps in combination. Among the coloured
gemstones, Pliny mentions that malachite (green) was believed to protect children
and was a prophylactic against danger, and that in the East 'everybody' wore a green
stone as an amulet. He dismisses the claim of quack magicians that amethysts inscribed
with the names of the sun and moon and worn round the neck with baboon hairs and
swallow feathers were a protection against spells.43 Colours were also seen as significant
in a more general sense, such as imperial purple. Tacitus thought it better for
an orator to wear a rough (shaggy/ woollen) toga rather than colourful clothing,
which was associated with prostitutes (' vel
hirta toga induere quam fucatis et meretriciis vestibus insignire' ). Mourners
and those awaiting trial wore dull colours such as black, brown, grey or cream,
while the colours appropriate for the clothing of Christian women were subject
to debate, as was the use of coloured cosmetics. In the first century A.D. the colour
purple used for the stripe on the toga praetexta
worn by both boys and girls in Rome was described as protective by Persius,
who defined it as a guardian (custos) of
the young.44
The recognition of the importance of colour
in the Roman world is not proof that all beads of coloured glass in late Roman Britain
were regarded as significant or credited with beneficial powers. Nevertheless, there
are examples in other cultures in other periods that enhance the possibility. In
Late Bronze Age Mesopotamia coloured glass was believed to have the same amuletic
properties as the stone it matched in hue, and glass bead necklaces had both protective
and curative powers.45 In modern Sarawak beads of various types are still worn for
protection or to strengthen the soul of an individual or community; in the nineteenth
century beads were tied to the left wrist of corpses, varying according to the age
and rank of the individual, to ensure admittance to the land of the dead.46 Most
pertinently for late Roman Britain, Meaney has demonstrated that glass beads in
Migration Period Europe could be credited with magical properties, and in this light
the multi-coloured bead accompanying the bell amulet on the armlet in Butt Road
G 1 is probably an example of the apotropaic or prophylactic use of coloured
glass.47
43 Pliny,
Hist. Nat. 37.114, 118, 124.
44 Tacitus,
Dialog. de oratoribus 26; Persius, Satire 5.30; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2.264, 2.265, 2.272; Clark 1993,
114; Croom 2002, 26; Olson 2006, 194.
45 Robson
2001, 52.
46 Morris
1997, 103, 108-9; Chin and Mashman 1991, 187.
47 Meaney
1981, 192-210.
An intention of including a wide range
of materials in a grave is apparent where finger rings were among the deposits
(see 'Materials' below). None are of copper alloy, the commonest material used for
rings in the late Roman period. There was one of iron on the bead string in Butt
Road G503, which was probably antique when buried. It may have been an heirloom,
but is more likely to represent the inclusion of a protective piece of iron. Using
a piece of iron to draw a circle around both infants and adults was believed to
ward off noxious influences, while rust and small fragments of iron were added to
ointments and other medicines used to treat a variety of ailments.48 One finger-ring
in Abbey Field C2 F166 was of ivory and the other of silver with a carnelian intaglio
of a stag. The animal is associated with Artemis-Diana, a link emphasised by the
use of silver, and the ring may have been used to invoke her. As the Greek Artemis
is also closely associated with bears, the intaglio may be a second reference to
her cult in this grave (see 'Discussion').
BEARS
Of the nine jet bears found in Britain
and Germany, seven come from burials. That in itself could be taken as sufficient
evidence that their significance is funerary, but they do not exist in isolation.
Pipeclay bear figurines have been found in cemeteries on the Continent, the most
striking being one from Brescia, Italy, that shows the animal sitting on its haunches
and holding a lamp aloft, an image that undoubtedly represents the animal as both
a guide and a companion (FIG. 11). A bear may accompany an enigmatic male figurine
found in an infant burial from Arrington, Cambs., but the identification of the
animal is very tentative (see below). Further funerary associations are provided
by Late Iron Age graves in Gaul containing bear teeth, and by other continental
and British first-century B.c. and first-century A.D. graves containing bear claws,
sometimes all that remained of whole skins. Indeed, the practice of depositing bear
claw and tooth amulets in graves developed much earlier in the prehistoric period.
49
FIG. 11. Ceramic
bear with lamp, from Brescia, north Italy. Scale 1:2. (After Bezzi Martini 1987)
48 Manning
1985, 78; Pliny, Hist. Nat. 34.44-5.
49 von
Gonzenbach 1995, 224-5; Bezzi Martini 1987, 51-5; M. Green 1993, 199; 1997a, 166; Schonfelder
1994;
Leveque 1995.
FIG.
12. Dea Artio figure group from Muri, Switzerland.
(Image © Historisches Museum Bern (BHM); photograph
S. Rebsamen)
.As the most powerful mammal of northern
Europe and the Mediterranean region, the brown bear (Ursus arctos) may, like the carnivorous lion, have represented all-devouring
death, but it can be seen as more benign in character than the lion, particularly
as it is the animal's passion for fruit that figures strongly in Roman iconography.
A mosaic from Trier shows a bear raiding an orchard and a relief from the town shows
a bear eating a pile of apples. The latter scene also occurs on a mosaic from Ostia
and was used for one of the jet bears from Colchester.50
Two Gaulish local deities are linked to
the bear (arias): Mercury Artaios is recorded
at Beaucroissant, Isere, and the goddess Artio in the Rhine-Moselle area. Artio
is a local goddess of both agriculture and the forest. Found at Muri, near Berne,
a bronze figure scene shows her seated, wearing a diadem and with a basket of fruit
on a pedestal beside her, while a bear approaches from beneath a tree (FIG. 12);
an inscription on the base reads 'Deae Artioni
Licinia Sabini/la' . Her basket offruit is not only a representation of plenty
and the bear's favourite food, but through fertility it also links her to Mother
Goddess figures, suggesting that as her companion the bear may parallel the dog
in its aspect of a guide to the underworld. The diademed face-mask placed in the
Trier grave with a jet bear may represent her image. Artio is also represented by
an inscription 'Artioni Biber' on a rock
near Ernzen, Luxembourg, although Ternes has suggested that this may be related
to Gaulish art (rock), rather than artos.51 Mercury Artaios, from his name and
from the location of Beaucroissant in the Rh6ne-Alpes region of France, on
50 Toynbee
1973, 99, pl. 35, 363, note 56.
51 CIL 13.4113, 5160; Toynbee 1973, 99, pl. 37; Jenkins 1957, 60; Thevenot 1968, 157; M. Green 1997a, 165-7;
1997b, 184; Wightman 1970, 217; Ciippers 1990, 363, Abb. 258; Ternes
1994, 143, 166 note 122; Goethert-Polaschek 1977, 323, no. 285. Dea Artio may be
paralleled by another Gaulish goddess, Andarta, whose name is interpreted by Ross
the edge of the Alps and in an area that
is still wooded today, must have been a conflation of the Roman Mercury with a local
god of forests and forest animals, perhaps, like Artio, with a link to agriculture.
52 Both Artio and Artaios are found in areas where agricultural fields meet the
forest and so interaction between the inhabitants of the two environments would
have been inevitable. The raids of bears on orchards and even beehives must have
been part of the seasonal cycle, and hunters, charcoal-burners and timber workers,
among others, ventured into the natural habitat of the bear. There was a clear need
to invoke the aid of a deity linked to the animal in order to ward off its depredations.
Like his female counterpart, Artaios may also have had a chthonic aspect, as one
of the roles of Mercury was to escort the souls of the dead (for a bear cub figurine
from Cologne found with two animal companions of Mercury see Appendix 1).
Another deity that is sometimes depicted
with a bear is Silvanus, a rustic god of Italian origin who had a wide-ranging triple
aspect as Agrestis, Domesticus and Orienta/is, effectively covering all aspects
of rural domestic life -the cultivated fields, the home, and the boundaries of property.
As his name suggests he was forest-dwelling and therefore venerated by those who
exploited the resources of the forest, including hunters; in this he was often linked
to Diana.53 He was venerated in the Rhineland by ursarii, military bear hunters picked from within the legions to supply
the amphitheatres with the beasts and given quotas to fulfil within specific periods.
He is shown on a votive plinth (preserved as casts at both Xanten and Bonn) set
up by Cessorinus Ammausius, ursarius of
legio XXX Ulpia Victrix, with a bear standing
at his side eating fruit, the motif already noted at Trier, Ostia and Colchester.
A group of ursarii set up an inscription
at Zurich to both Silvanus and Diana, and a bear trap found in the fort at Zugmantel
implies the presence of another ursarius there.54
Sometimes bears were used as executioners
rather than victims. Writing in the reign of Titus (A.D. 79-81), Martial describes
Caledonian bears being used to dispatch criminals dressed and posed as mythological
figures in set-piece arena executions, and a Gaulish ceramic figurine that shows
a bound female captive seated on a bull and under attack from a small bear crouched
on the bull's shoulders may depict such a scene.55 Martial's use of 'Caledonia'
implies that British bears were among the resources of the new province tapped by
Rome, but he may have chosen the word as a metaphor rather than as an accurate record
of the animal's origin. By naming a source from beyond Empire, the civilised
world, he emphasised the wildness and savagery of the animals. Once Britannia was
brought within the Empire, Caledonia became the epitome of the shadowy lands on
its margins, its name lending to the bears of the arena a far different aspect from
that of the almost domestic creature gently approaching Artio's basket of
fruit.
Ross described the bear as a divine animal
in Celtic religion and offered Matunus, named in an inscription from High Rochester,
Northumberland, as a possible northern British bear god, arguing an etymological
connection to another Gaulish word for bear, matus. She proposed that the jet bears from York and Malton were linked
to his worship, but she was not aware of those from southern Britain and without
more substantial supporting evidence her interpretation of Matunus re1pains very
uncertain. 56
Two external observations hint that the
bear had symbolic importance to the inhabitants of Britain in the Late Iron Age
and Roman periods. First, the country was described by Diodorus
as 'powerful bear', although M. Green
offers an alternative meaning of 'unconquerable': Ross, 1967, 349; M. Green l 997a,
32.
52 CIL 12.2199: Mercurio I Aug Artaio I sacr I Sex Geminius I Cupitus I ex uoto; Benoit 1959, 147.
53 Dorcey
1992, 21-5, 28-9, 83.
54 CIL 13.8639: Deo Siluano I Cessorinius IAmmausius I ursarius
Leg IX\'.X V VS A VS
L M; Esperandieu 1925, 6583;
CIL 13.5243: Deae Dianae I et Si/uano I ursari l posuerulnt
ex uoto; Howald and Meyer 1940, 277,
no. 261; Epplett 2001,
214.
55 Martial, De Spect. 7.3;
8.12; Golvin and Landes 1990, 191.
56
RIB i, 1265; Ross 1967, 349.
Siculus, c. 30 s.c., as 'very cold, as would be expected for a region lying under
the Bear itself', a reference to Ursa Major, which can be used as a general north
point because it appears to revolve around Polaris, the North Star. This description
is probably simply a conventional metaphor for 'in the north', just as septentriones (the seven plough-oxen) was
not only the name for the seven stars that make up the Plough, the most easily recognised
element of Ursa Major, but was also used as a metonym for the north or the north
wind. As Diodorus was writing from a southern perspective, some evidence from Britain
itself would be needed to substantiate the idea that its inhabitants regarded themselves
as particularly associated with the Great Bear.57 Second, in the late fourth century
A.D. the poet Claudian's description of the personification of Britannia has her
clothed in the pelt of a Caledonian beast, almost certainly intended to mean that
of a bear:
Inde Caledonia velata Britannia monstro, ferro picta genas,
cuius vestigia verrit caerulus Oceanique aestum mentitur amictus.
Then spoke Britain, clothed in the pelt
of a Caledonian beast, her cheeks tattooed, and an azure cloak, rivalling the swell
of Ocean, sweeping to her feet.58
Although this image is undoubtedly a formulaic
description that was informed by a long poetic tradition, Britannia's animal fur
clothing, like her tattooed cheeks and sea-girt coast (the sky-blue cloak), were
no doubt perceived as accurate. Comparison with the accuracy of the descriptions
of Spain, Gaul, Italy and Africa shows that the image of Britain was informed by
reality, however archaic. Within the literary memory of Rome it was understood that
Britons wore furs, although, like Martial, Claudian has made the practice seem even
more barbaric by giving the source of the pelt as Caledonia, beyond Empire, with
its hint of the savagery of the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. 59
Giving some credibility to the image drawn
by Claudian are bearskins, represented by only the phalanges, found among the grave
goods in the rich burial at Welwyn Garden City, dated to c. 10 B.c., and a well-furnished cremation at The Tene, Baldock, dated
to the first half of the first century B.c. In these contexts both skins were clearly
luxury items belonging to people of wealth and high status. Schonfelder has suggested
that the use of bearskins was an indication of Germanic influence, but it is more
appropriate to see them as part of a very much wider northern tradition, provoked
by the harsh climate.60 There is no reason to see them as specifically British.
The iconographic evidence for bears in Roman
Britain is quite limited. They appear on
some figured pottery, a few small objects such as the South Shields cameo, and are
sometimes represented among the beasts on Orphean mosaics. Many of these items are
imported, making images of bears on British-made objects quite rare, although the
figured pottery includes British colour-coat vessels with venatio scenes. Had a bear-god or goddess been prominent among the cults
of Roman Britain we might expect to see rather more bear images, in particular among
the
wide range of plate brooches and metal
figurines from the province, but this is not the case.61
57 Diodorus, Biblio. Hist. 5.21-2; Ridpath 1996, maps 1 and 9. The full constellation
of the Great Bear lies between declination 31° and 64° north, but the seven stars
of the Plough, i.e. the rump and tail of the bear, lie between 49° (!], Alkaid)
and 62° (a, Dubhe). The south coast of
Britain lies between latitudes 50° and 51° north and the Orkneys at 59°, so the
Plough can appear overhead to an observer in Britain, but never to one in Rome,
which is at 42°.
58 Claudian,
De Cons. Stil. 2.247-9.
59
Eckardt and Crummy 2008, 70.
60 Stead
1967, 42; Stead and Rigby 1986, 51-61; Schonfelder 1994.
61 Toynbee
1962, 190, no. 158; 1964, 247-8, 412-13; 1973, 95-6, 289-99, pl. 36; Allason-Jones
and Miket 1984, 342,
no. 10.1; Henig 1993, 37, fig. 2, 10;
Neal 1981, 118, 121-2.
The number of bear bones found in Britain
is very small and they are generally described as coming from performing animals
or victims of bear-baiting. 62 This limited archaeological evidence implies either
that the animals were not generally hunted here for their meat, pelts and the medicinal
properties attributed to their fat,63 or that they were largely confined to remote
forests, or that the overwhelming majority of captured animals were exported. An
altar from the fort at Birdoswald dedicated to Silvanus is tantalisingly similar
to the stones set up by ursarii in the
Rhineland, having been erected by the venatores
of Banna (probably Bewcastle). Bears
caught either south or north of the Wall were probably destined for export, and
documentary evidence suggests that few were used in provincial amphitheatres, most
being destined for Rome. There, hundreds of bears could be slaughtered in a
day, with Commodus personally accounting for the equivalent of a singk hunter's
annual quota in a few hours.64
Against this generally thin background,
the jet bears stand out prominently as a group of funerary artefacts, the coherence
of their contexts inviting interpretation of the animal as a protective guardian
for the dead children with whom they were buried. That they were amulets rather
than toys is demonstrated by their contexts, particularly by the recovery of the
pair from Abbey Field AF25, Colchester, in
situ among threaded beads, and by their size. They range in length from 11 mm
to 38 mm, with the degree of detail increasing accordingly, but the smallest captures
the physical characteristics of the animal as effectively as the largest. The mother
goddess guardian of infants symbolized by the bears need not necessarily be the
Rhine-Moselle Artio. The existence of an unnamed British bear-goddess can be inferred;
she may be entirely indigenous, or an introduction derived from Artio or from a
more distant source. A source distant in both time and place is readily provided
by the cultic practices associated with Artemis, who from the Classical to Roman
periods in Attica was associated with bears, bear-priestesses, bear children, bear-guardians,
and childbirth. The possible links between Artemis, Artio and the goddess represented
by the jet bears are developed below in the Discussion.
COINS
Interpretations are offered below for
the coins in individual graves and the replication
of iconography between burials is defined. Not only could the female deities and
personifications represented here have been selected for their attributes, but when
viewed as a group they seem to have been chosen more as representations of a generic
rather than a specific mother (FIG. 13, Group A). Similarly, the male images are
martial, but seem to have been chosen not as representations of any one warrior-god
but as generic representatives of masculine protection (FIG. 13, Group B). Together
the two groups act as substitute parents for the dead children. Minerva shown as
a warrior overlaps both groups. In some cases the reverses in Groups A and B
hint at resurrection, Cybele most particularly, and in the mid- to late fourth century
when the pairing of male and female images disappears, the martial reverses persist
and are joined by images more strongly resonant of resurrection and rebirth (FIG.
13, Group C). Here the emperor carrying a /abarum
with a chi-rho overlaps two groups. The reverse images and other data are summarised
in Table 3.
62 Luff
1985, 148; 1993, 134, tables 3.5b-3.7; Reilly 2008.
63 Pliny
describes bear fat as an ingredient in medicines and as a prophylactic against baldness;
Hist. Nat. 8.54.
64
RIB I, 1905: Dea sancto I
Siluano uelnatores I Banniess(es); Livy, ab Urbe Cond. 44.18.8; Cassius Dio, Roman
History 53.27.6;
73.18.l; Epplett 2001; Kyle 1998, 90; Welch 2007, 24.
FIG. 13. Coin reverses in Group 1 and Group 2 graves. Group
A, female/maternal figures; Group B, male/martial figures; Group C, rebirth/resurrection
images.
TABLE 3. COINS IN INFANT GRAVES AT COLCHESTER
AND LANKHILLS, WINCHESTER
Grave Coin
position Identification Reverse image Character Secondary
Coin Grave
features date date Colchester, in box-coffin with Faustina II Spes maternal antique 146-61
early 4th Abbey Field cremation and other Antoninus Pius wolf and twins maternal antique 140- century AF25 grave
goods 43/4
Colchester, with
cremated bone, Faustina II Cybele
(Mater maternal
antique? 146-61 late 3rd-
Abbey Field jewellery and amulets Magna) early
4th C2 F166 " Faustina II Venus maternal antique? 146-61
century
with pots Gallienus Mars martial 260-8
Claudius II Genius Exerci martial 268-70
Claudius II Virtus martial 268-70
Malton Caracalla antique 215-18
early 4th century?
York, Constantine
I Sol resurrection
- 312-15 early 4th
Bootham century?
Colchester, threaded with amulets Claudius I Minerva (worn resurrection
pierced; 43-54 300/20- Butt Road down
to wheel) antique 320/40 0278 Hadrian emperor martial in
silver 117-38
galloping, frame;
carrying spear antique
Julia Maesa Pudicitia maternal pierced; 218-25
antique
Colchester, threaded with beads, Diadumenian Princeps martial pierced; 217-218 320/40- Butt Road finger-ring and disc Iuventutis antique 330/50
G503
Colchester, threaded with beads House
of emperor with martial pierced 364-78
late 4th- Butt Road Valentinian captive early
5th
Gl5 House
of emperor with martial pierced 364-78
century Valentinian captive
Colchester, threaded with beads Valens Victory resurrection
pierced 367-75 late 4th-
Butt Road and amulets early 5th
G406 century
Winchester, in mouth Constantinopolis
Victory resurrection - 330-1 390-410
Lankhills, House of emperor with martial/ 364-78
Grave 289 Valentinian captive resurrection - 388-408
House of Victory resurrection Theodosius
Winchester, in or near left hand Valentinian
I emperor with martial/ 364-75 370-90
Lankhills, captive resurrection
Grave 370
Colchester, Abbey Field, AF25
The two coins in this fourth-century grave may have been antique when
buried, as hoard evidence shows that good quality coins of the second century remained
in circulation until the late third century but not into the fourth.65 The reverse
of Spes, holding a flower in her right hand and lifting her skirt with her left
(FIG. 13, 1), is the personification of innocent childlike hope, an appropriate
image in an apotropaic context and protective when used as a grave gift from a parent
to a young child. The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus on the other coin (FIG.
13, 2) would have been a familiar and easily understood image of the Roman state.
It may have been selected to harness the power of the Roman state to guard the child
in death, but it is a powerful portrayal of maternal protection and sustenance that
is appropriate for a helpless
65 Reece
2002, 42-4.
unweaned infant and it also invokes the
dog as the guide and guardian of the soul on its journey to the underworld.
Colchester, Abbey Field 2004, C2 F166
All the coins had been placed in the grave
with the reverse face uppermost, a contextual detail that underpins the interpretations
presented here. The pottery ranges in date from mid-third to mid-fourth century
so it is not certain if all or any of these coins were antique at the time of burial.
The three third-century reverses are all male martial images, while the second-century
reverses both show female deities; together they can be seen as appropriate promises
of maternal and paternal protection in the afterlife. Genius Exerci, Virtus Aug, and Marti
Pacifero all show warrior figures and together present a strong case for deliberate
selection (FIG. 13, 7-9).66 One of the goddesses is Venus, who was often venerated
as a mother goddess, protector of domestic life and fertility (FIG. 13, 3).67 The
other is Cybele, shown enthroned and accompanied by a pair of lions, with the legend
Matri Magnae (FIG. 13, 4). The funerary
aspect of lions has been mentioned above, and the cult of the Great Mother also
promised resurrection. In some Romano British funerary contexts jet and other
black minerals may have been used to refer to the 'Black Stone', the chief symbol
of Cybele's cult that was transferred from Phrygia to Rome in 204 B.c. Cybele had
followers in at least some British settlements, where continental influence was
strong or the population was chiefly drawn from the Continent. On military sites
in the North there is an altar dedicated to her from Corbridge, a statue from Carvoran,
and a probable gal/us burial at Catterick
furnished with a suite of black mineral jewellery. There are several objects related
to her worship from London, including elaborately decorated bronze forceps (so-called
castration clamps) from the Thames and possibly an altar. Colchester has produced
little Cybele material, but there is a head of Artis among the collections of
the Colchester Museum. Among the Group 1 graves containing jet bears, that from
Trier contained a hairpin with pine-cone head, which may also be a reference to
the rites of the Great Goddess through the pine tree's association with Artis. On
the other hand, the pine cone is also associated with Mithras through the incense
used in his worship, with Bacchus through his cone-tipped thyrsus, and with Silvanus who is shown standing beneath a stone pine
or carrying a pine branch.68
York
The coin found with the York bear is of
Constantine I, reverse Soli lnvicto Comiti
(FIG. 13, 15). The legend is martial and the image of the radiate Sol conveys
the idea of the cycle of life appropriate to many religions, whether they believed
in resurrection through the intercession of a saviour deity, or in reincarnation
in the Platonic sense, or in a more substantial afterlife, the same as life but
'other'. Expressed simply, the rising sun of a new day is an image of new beginnings
appropriate for an infant, and the sun as giver of life could be seen as a powerful
ally in the fight against illness or as a guardian in the afterlife.
66 At the large St Mary's excavation in
Colchester (2001-3), Virtus Aug accounted
for two out of fourteen regular issues of Claudius II, but Genius Exerci does not occur there at all and Marti Pacifero does not occur on any of the seven Gallienus coins from
the same site (Colchester Archaeological Trust, report in preparation). The comparative
scarcity of these reverses at St Mary's argues strongly for collection and curation
for use at burial at Abbey Field.
67
Thevenot 1968, 178-80; Webster 1986,
60; M. Green l 997a, 115.
68 Livy,
ab Urbe Cond. 29.10-11, 14; Vermaseren
1977, esp. 138; 1978; 1989; RIB I, 1135;
M. Green 1976, 56-7, 216,
222; Coulston and Phillips 1988, no. 116;
Cool 2002a, 41-2; Tillyard 1917; Bird 2004; Wallace 2004; Dorcey 1992, 17.An inscribed
poem to Virgo Caelestis found at Carvoran
may be linked to the worship of Cybele: RIB
I, 1791.
Malton
The coin of Caracalla found with the Malton
jet bear can, unfortunately, no longer be located, but it would again have been
antique or at least long-used when buried, since it is described as a late issue
of A.D. 215-218. The reverse types minted
by Caracalla on denarii after A.D. 215 include several images that would be appropriate
in a healing or funerary context, some of which occur in other graves discussed
here. Those most worth noting are a walking lion, Pluto with Cerberus, Luna (wearing
a crescent headdress and riding in a biga
drawn by bulls), Sol, and Asclepius.
Colchester, Butt Road, Grave 278
The three coins in this burial were all
antique when buried; that of Claudius was about 300 years old, that of Hadrian 200
years old, and that of Julia Maesa about 100 years old, but it is difficult to believe
that their neat spread across the centuries was deliberate. There are, moreover,
striking differences between the three. The Julia Maesa denarius is good hoard material
and not much worn, its piercing is narrow and delicately made. In contrast the asses
are well worn; as the original details of their reverse images are unlikely to have
survived in oral tradition, what is visible now must be very close to what was visible
in the early fourth century, and any interpretation must therefore be based on their
present condition.
The Claudian as is so worn as to be virtually
unidentifiable, and the hole through it is wide and simply hammered through from
the obverse, leaving the edge on the reverse burred. This implies that the obverse
was the most important side, but the hole is at the back of the emperor's neck so
that the portrait would not be upright when the coin was suspended. The reverse
type is of Minerva holding a shield and brandishing a spear, an image spanning Groups
A and B (FIG. 13, 5) and one that would make a good apotropaic or prophylactic amulet.
In its present condition, however, only the rim of the shield and Minerva's left
arm passing across it can now be seen, resembling part of a spoked wheel and lying
directly beneath the suspension hole (FIG. 9, 6). Minerva is shown as triumphant
over death on lead coffins, and in her Celtic sky-goddess aspects has links with
the solar wheel.69
The Hadrianic as is less worn, and the
decoration and position of the frame show that it was selected for the reverse image.
Showing the emperor mounted and holding a spear, it picks up the martial theme of
other coins in these graves (FIG. 13, 10). He is both protective and aggressive,
paralleling the rider god who is so well represented in Britain and on the Continent.
Particularly pertinent examples are horse-and-rider brooches, the relief from Stragglethorpe,
Lines., which shows a rider god spearing a monster, and images of Bellerophon slaying
the Chimaera. In Gaul the rider god appears as both Mars and Jupiter, the latter
shown on Jupiter-columns trampling monsters. An apotropaic rider image from the
tomb of an infant in Rome shows a hunter spearing a beast; the rider has been identified
as Solomon, and the theme that of the triumph of good over evil.70
The perforation on the denarius of Julia
Maesa is set so that the empress's portrait hangs upright. She appears as a Mother
figure, her chthonic aspect enhanced by being in silver, the colour of the moon.
The reverse type, Pudicitia, symbolises modesty, chastity and purity; she is authoritative,
shown seated with a sceptre in her left hand (FIG. 13, 6). Both this reverse and
that of the mounted emperor may have been taken as images of particular deities,
parallels to
69 de
Vries 1961, 78-9; Toller 1977, 19; H.J.M. Green 1986, 45; also the Rev. Thomas Rackett
in a brief account of a lead coffin from south London in Archaeo/ogia 17 (1814), 333-4.
70 M.
Green 1976, pl. II, e; 1997b, 114-17; Ferris 1985; H.J.M. Green 1986, 42-3; Mackreth
1986, 66-7; Hattatt 1987,
232-6; Rodwell 1988; Major 1993, 44, 46;
Johns 1990; 1996a; 1996b, fig. 4.2; Simpson and Blance 1998; Toynbee 1963;
1964, 264-5, 349, 447; Thevenot 1968,
47-50; Smith I977; Ambrose and Henig 1980; Nuzzo 2000, 251, fig. 26.1, 7.
a stone relief from Kingscote, Glos.,
which shows a rider-god paired with a seated goddess. Unfortunately, the inscription
on the relief does not name the deities, being simply 'Iul(i)us l(ibens) s(oluit) '.11
In Grave 278 the choice of female and
male images again provides symbols of both maternal and paternal protection, with
resurrection perhaps represented by the wheel image on the worn Claudian coin. Both
maternal and paternal protection can also be seen among the objects deposited with an infant at Arrington,
Cambs. The child suffered from hydrocephalus and was buried in a lead coffin with
a wooden box full of pipeclay figurines on the lid: a bald-headed infant, a long-haired
child, a seated youth pulling a thorn from his foot, a Mother Goddess, a cloaked
male possibly with a bear, three rams, and a bullock or ox. The first three appear
to represent the stages between infancy and maturity that the dead child would pass
through as he (presumably) continued to grow in the afterlife, while the Mother
Goddess and the enigmatic cloaked male appear to be substitute parents. The animals
may represent sacrificial beasts, or, if deposited by a family whose wealth lay
in pastoral farming, might be representative of the flocks and herds essential for
both status and survival.72
Colchester,
Butt Road, Grave 503
The burial contained a pierced antique
coin of Diadumenian (son of the emperor Macrinus,
A.O. 217-218) with the reverse legend
Prine Iuventutis (FIG. 13, 11). It is rare, if not unique, in Roman Britain,
and is little worn, probably having been curated or hoarded almost from the time
of minting.73 The grave is dated to c. A.O.
320/40-330/50, making the coin about 100 years old when buried. The obverse portrait
would be upright when the coin was suspended while the reverse hung at five o'clock;
it shows the young Caesar in military costume holding a standard in his right hand
and with two other standards set to his left, again a protective and aggressive
martial image.
Colchester,
Butt Road, Grave 15
Both coins in this burial are very worn
House of Valentinian issues. They had clearly been in circulation for some time,
may have been antique, and the date of the burial could lie well into the fifth
century. The piercings appear to respect neither obverse nor reverse, but are set
to avoid passing through both the crown of the emperor's head on the obverse and
the figure of the emperor on the reverse. Both coins have the reverse type of Gloria Romanorum, showing the emperor dragging
a captive behind him with his right hand and holding a labarum in his left (FIG. 13, 12). This political message of imperial
might defeating the barbarian threat has both aggressive and protective implications
and the chi-rho on the labarum gives it
additional, Christian, impact. The monogram is found not only on the official coinage
and on objects associated with the Christian religion but also throughout daily
life. It was scratched onto vessels, perhaps as a protective symbol or as a sign
of ownership, and appears to have been conflated with the solar wheel, sometimes
appearing in this form on small personal amulets.74 The coins in G15 may therefore
have been chosen as apotropaic amulets or as symbols of resurrection, and so fall
into both Group B and Group C.
71 RIB l, 135.
72 M. Green 1993, 194-6; Taylor 1993.
The special care taken over the selection of the Arrington grave goods can be compared
with the large collection of amulets and jewellery in the burial of a ten-year-old
Middle Iron Age girl on the Oiirrnberg in Austria who had suffered from some form
of dwarfism (Pauli 1981, 179-80).
73 R.
Reece, pers. comm.
74 Painter
1977, nos 3, 7-14, 16, 18-19, 21-2; Guy 1981, 273-4; Mawer 1995, 57, 83, 87; Bitenc
and Knific 2001, no.
33.
Colchester, Butt Road, Grave 406
The coin on the bracelet in Grave 406
is of Valens, contemporary with those in Grave 15, and again possibly antique when
buried. The piercing respects the reverse, being set to one side of the figure of
Victory and passing through the back of the portrait on the obverse. The reverse
legend and image, Securitas Reipublicae, Victory
bearing a wreath and palm (FIG. 13, 16), are again both overtly political and apotropaic:
Securitas has a clear protective meaning,
while triumphant Victory, the conqueror of death, has an apotropaic value and promises
resurrection.
Related burials from Lankhills and Poundbury
A nine-month-old child buried in Grave
370 at Lankhills had in, or close to, its left hand a coin of Valentinian I with
the same Gloria Romanorum reverse as that
of the coins in Butt Road Grave 15. Also at Lankhills, an infant in Grave 289 was
buried with three coins in the mouth; one also has the Gloria Romanorum reverse, and the other two show images of Victory.
The coins in both burials can be interpreted as ferryman's fees, yet both are slightly
unusual -three coins in the mouth instead of one in Lankhills Grave 289, and the
coin in or near the left hand rather than the customary right in Lankhills Grave
370 (see 'Position' below). Other infant/child graves at Lankhills held coins that
may have had a protective purpose beyond use as Charon's fee (see 'Discussion').
Poundbury Grave 370 may not be an infant grave, but is mentioned here since it contained
a pierced antique coin of Postumus, with the reverse of a galley and the legend
Laetitia Aug. In a funerary context this
can be seen as a clear reference to the journey to the Blessed Isles. There was
only one other antique coin at Poundbury, an issue of Elagabalus, reverse illegible,
which had been placed in the mouth of a middle-aged male in Grave 1163.75
MATERIALS
The importance of material in the selection
of grave goods is shown in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 shows the consistent presence
of electrostatic jet jewellery or of jet-imitative black mineral jewellery in all
the Group 1 graves -apart from Abbey Field C2 Fl66, which instead has a jet bear
and is closer in general material character to the Group 2 graves -whilst Table
2 shows the range of materials present in some of the Group 2 graves. There appears
to have been a deliberate intention in several of the Group 2 graves to include
iron, and in some to include silver (or silver- or tin-plating). Butt Road Grave
278 in Group 2 has the widest range of materials, but evidence of attempts to maximise
the materials present can also be seen in other graves cited above and in Appendix
2: the use of iron for the chain in Grave 94; copper alloy, iron and white metal
for the armlet in Grave 15; and the white-metal plating on one strand of the copper-alloy
armlet in Grave 1, as well as the iron clapper on the attached bell. The same can
be said of the iron finger-ring, plain copper-alloy disc, and perhaps also the coin
of Diadumenian with the jet beads in Grave 503; the silver lunula pendant in Grave
406; and the silver and bone finger-rings in Abbey Field C2 Fl66.
A particularly unusual object from an
infant burial found during excavations in the 1960s at Verulam Hills Field, St Albans,
Herts., is pertinent here. The child was buried in a lead lined coffin with a small
group of crepundia that included two imported
murex shells and a now amorphous lead object interpreted by the excavator as a phallic
amulet, all contained in a wooden box placed at the foot of the body. Placed between
the left arm and the body was a hollow iron rod on which were set hexagonal beads
of shale and bone, producing a banded effect.
75
Clarke 1979, table 2; Reece 1979,
table 30; Toynbee 1971, 38, 276; Henig 1977, 351; Sparey-Green and Reece 1993, table
8.
This eye-catching object may have been
a rattle; it was certainly too complex to be a spindle or distaff as the excavator
suggested. It may have been a prophylactic that deliberately incorporated contrasting
colours and substances, but is more likely to be an example of apotropaic magic.76
Pauli has defined the amulets from prehistoric
graves in the northern Alpine region into groups that taken together represent the
full range of apotropaic equipment: first, noise-making objects; second, objects
of meaningful shape; third, objects with special external qualities; fourth,
curiosities and remarkable objects; and fifth, objects made of a material
valued for special properties. 77 In the context of his analysis, the gathering
together of a range of materials in the Romano-British burials would work towards
building up an effective apotropaic collection of grave deposits and items from
the graves can easily be assigned to one or more of his groups. Bells are the most
obvious examples of the first category, but any suspended item may clatter against
its neighbours. Objects of meaningful shape would include the lunulae, the phalli,
the canine tooth, the human head, and the bears. Reflective, light-absorbing and
coloured objects all class as having special external qualities, and this would
include all items of silver, burnished copper alloy, jet, glass, and amber; the
unusual rod from Verulam Hills Field also belongs here, with the combination of
contrasting colours being particularly powerful. The human head must rank as a curiosity
and the bears as both curiosities and remarkable objects, as would the shells and
rod from Verulam Hills Field. The electrostatic properties of both jet and amber
place the bears and much of the jewellery into the fifth group, and iron also had
protective qualities. As with several of the objects, coins fit into several groups:
when suspended they make noise; they can be classed as solar symbols or moon symbols
by virtue of their colour and shape; they may reflect light; and, in a fourth-century
milieu where coin reverses show little variation, the images on the surfaces of
antique coins make them both remarkable and curious.
The significance of the objects in these
graves therefore relies upon material as well as upon shape, properties and symbolic
purpose. The various colours and properties of the surfaces would all have contributed
both singly and together towards the efficacy of the amulets -and this should include
the jewellery of all materials -in providing protection for the dead children.
POSITION
The importance of the position of objects
in graves can be seen in the frequent occurrence of coins -used as the ferryman's
fee -in the mouth or on the eye, or close to the right hand. They were placed where
the dead person could easily find them, or where Charon could easily find and take
them for himself. The physical form of the body remained important after death.
A remarkable use of coin reverse imagery
relative to body position occurs in Lankhills Grave 336, a well-furnished older
child's grave (see Appendix 2). The burial was dated to A.D. 350-370 and most of
the six coins in the burial were probably still in circulation at that time, apart
perhaps from a follis of Constantine I. They had clearly been selected as three
pairs and deliberately placed in a protective pattern. Two coins were by the child's
right hand, two in the left hand, and two to the left of the feet (FIG. 14).78 The
two in the left hand were a true pair, with only the mint marks differing; both
are in the Fe! Temp Reparatio series of
Constantius II, with the reverse of Virtus spearing a falling horseman (FIG. 13,
14). The design has, beyond its political message, a protective-aggressive interpretation
linked to the rider image seen in Butt Road G278. The coins by the right hand are
both of Magnentius, one with the reverse Victoriae
DD NN Aug et Cae showing two Victories standing facing each other and holding
a shield, the other with Salus DD
76 Anthony
1968, 41-2.
77 Pauli
1975, 116-35.
78 Clarke
1979, table 2; Reece 1979, table 30.
NN Aug et Cae showing
a chi-rho flanked by alpha and omega (FIG. 13, 17-18). One of the two by the feet
was of Constantine II, with the reverse of Gloria
Exercitus with two soldiers and two standards between them (FIG. 13, 13),
the other was of Constantine I, reverse Soli
lnvicto Comiti, a type which was also used in the York jet bear burial (FIG.
13, 15). The three pairs can
be interpreted as martial (physical, practical)
protection in the left hand; religious (spiritual, otherworldly) protection on the
right; and both forms of protection at the feet, with the invincible Sol as a symbol
of the triumph of day over night, light over dark, life over death. That the pair
on the left were clasped in the hand rather than placed beside it lays emphasis
upon them, matched by the position of other items in these burials, such as the
coin in Lankhills Grave 370, the pierced canines in Lankhills Grave 450, the black
mineral armlets in Butt Road G503, and the bead/pendant collections in Butt Road
G503 and G 15.
The consistent placing of coins with the
reverse upwards in the Group 1 Colchester burials emphasises the importance of the
reverse images in a funerary context and also the level of detail pursued by the
mourning families. The careful placement is paralleled by pipeclay figurines in
some second-century infant burials at Argentomarus
(Argenton-sur-Creuse, France), which stresses their use as beneficial guardians.
In one neonatal burial two Venus figurines, a nursing Mother Goddess and two horses
were placed in a circle around the burial um towards the top of the grave pit, and
in the tile-lined inhumation of a weaning infant two Venus figurines were placed
so that they flanked the infant's head. The lesser importance of physical nourishment
is shown by a tettine placed by the right foot in this burial. 79
It is significant that many of the coins
and other items in the graves described here were in or close to the left hand,
on the left arm, or close to the left side. Another, more unusual, amuletic item
placed in the left hand is the pierced pebble held by the person buried beneath
the temple mausoleum at Lullingstone, Kent.80 In late Roman Britain the left, sinister, side seems to have been perceived
in death as most vulnerable to attack by malign influences, and the side most requiring
the protective power of amulets or materials credited with beneficial qualities.81
In a protective sense this is demonstrated by the positions of the coins in Lankhills
Grave 336, for the only ones held by the child were the pair with martial reverse
type in the left hand. This may be matched by the martial reverse of the coin in
the left hand of Lankhills infant Grave 370.
DISCUSSION
The iconography of coin reverses in infant
graves is here set into a wider context to demonstrate the validity of the interpretation.
The association of the bear with Artemis is developed and a possible link to Silvanus
briefly examined. The social identity of the children buried with jet bears is explored.
DELIBERATE SELECTION OF COIN REVERSES
Coins in graves are usually interpreted
as ferryman's fees and are customarily placed in the mouth, on the eyes, or in or
near the right hand, a pattern of deposition common to both child and adult burials
at Lankhills (Table 4) and elsewhere.82 At Lankhills other positions are quite rare,
while some multiple deposits imply that a single coin might be perceived as inadequate.
Only two graves of infants of one year or younger at Lankhills contained coins,
but although only six out of over 700 burials in the Butt Road cemetery contained
coins, four of those six were of infants and the coins themselves were either pierced
or provided with an alternative method of suspension (Table 3). Many of the coins
in the Butt Road infant graves were antique,
79 Allain
et al. 1992, 52-3, 95.
80 Meates
1979, 28; Black 1986, 222.
81
Earlier in the classical world there
was some ambiguity regarding left and right. To take the auspices from the flight
of birds the Romans faced south, so the favourable east side lay on the left, while
the Greeks faced north, so that it lay on their right. Note by Kent in Varro, de Lingua Latina, 350.
82 Philpott
1991, 212, table A38; Sparey-Green and Reece 1993, table 8; Clarke 1979, table 2.
TABLE 4. POSITIONS OF COINS IN GRAVES
AT LANKHILLS
(Age and gender details come from revised
data supplied by Rebecca Gowland, Durham University; the data in Clarke 1979 is
used for some burials that she could not examine. Numbers in brackets after the
description of the coin reverse refer to the index of reverses in Carson et al. 1972.)
Grave Age Gender Coin position Identification Reverse Coin date
Grave
date
370 9
months -
in or near left Valentinian I Gloria Romanorum (8) 364-75 370-90
hand
289 12
months - in mouth Constantinopolis Victory on prow 330-1 390-410
House of Gloria Romanorum (8) 364-78
Valentinian
House of Salus Reipublicae (2) 388-402
Theodosius
372 1-3
years in or near Theodosius
I Victoria
Auggg 388-402 400-10
mouth
164 7-8
years - right
eye Urbs Roma wolf
and twins 330-41 330-70
socket
336 7-12 in left hand
Constantius II Fe/ Temp Reparatio, 350-61 350-70
falling horseman (3)
Constantius II Fe/ Temp Reparatio, 350-61
falling horseman (3)
by right hand Magnentius Victoriae DD NN Aug et 350-64
Cae (2)
Magnentius Salus DD NN Aug et Caes 350-3
(2)
to left of feet Constantine
I Soli
Invicto Comiti, globe 310-13
Constantine II Gloria Exercitus, 2 330-5
standards
378 8
years by head House of Gloria Exercitus, 1 335-45 390-410
approx. Constantine standard
House of Gloria Exercitus, 1 335-45
Constantine standard
House of Fe/ Temp Reparatio, 350-64
Constantine falling horseman (3)
Arcadius Victoria Auggg 388-402
House of Victoria Auggg 388-402
Theodosius
382 9
years in mouth illegible 4th century 390-410
172 child right hip Constantine
I Marti Patri
Conservatori 307-9 310-30
152 13-17 lower left leg Carausius Pax Aug 286-93 300-30
years
265 15/20 right shoulder House of Victoria
Augg 388-402 390-5
Theodosius
137 18-24 f in mouth Constantinopolis
Victory on prow 330-41 330-70
58 adult m in mouth Valens Securitas Reipublicae 364-78 365-80
Valentinian I Gloria Romanorum (8) 364-75
Valentinian I Gloria Romanorum (8) 364-75
Valentinian I Gloria Romanorum (8) 364-75
88 18
-24 m? in mouth Valens Securitas Reipublicae 364-78 365-90
109 20-25 m in mouth Constantinopolis
Victory on prow 330-41 330-60
114 18-24 f in mouth Constantine
I Soli lnvicto
Comiti, globe 310--17
315-30
228 5o+ f in
mouth Constantine I Sarmatia Devicta 323-4 325-40
232 18-24 f in mouth House
of Gloria
Romanorum (8) 364-78
365-90
Valentinian
270 35-49 f in mouth Valens Gloria
Romanorum (8) 364-78 365-80
in right hand Valens Gloria Romanorum
(8) 364-78
House of Gloria Romanorum (8) 364-78
Valentinian
Grave Age Gender Coin position Identification Reverse Coin date
Grave
date
347
25-34 right
arm Valentinian I
Securitas Reipublicae 364-75
390--410
413
35-49 m? in right hand Theodosius
I Victoria
Augg 388-95 390--410
Theodosius I Vot X Mult XX 388-95
Arcadius Salus Reipublicae 388-402
House of Salus Reipublicae 388-402
Theodosius
437
adult m in pile by Constantius II Vot XX Mult XXXX 357--61 360--70
right elbow Julian
II Vot V Mult X 357-61
Julian II Vot V Mutt X 357-61
Julian II Vot X Mutt XX 361-3
Julian II Vot X Mutt XX 361-3
8
25-34 in
mouth House of Gloria Exercitus, I 335-45
365-90
Constantine standard
Valens Gloria Romanorum (8) 364-78
Valentinian I Securitas Reipublicae 364-75
212
25-30 f in mouth Constantius II Gloria Exercitus, 2 330--5 330--70
standards
351
25-30 in
mouth Constans Victoriae
DD Augg Q NN 34617-8 370--90
360
25-34 in
mouth Valens Securitas Reipublicae 364-78
370--90
381
25-35 in
mouth House of Securitas Reipub/icae 364-78
390--410
Valentinian
322
25+ m left shoulder
Valentinian I
Restitutor Reip 364-75 370--90
81
35-49 m? in
pile by left Magnentius Felicitas
Reipublice (2) 350--3 350--70
hip Magnentius Felicitas
Reipublice (2) 350--64
Constans Fe/ Temp Reparatio, 348--64
falling horseman (2)
96 35-49 m? outside
coffin, Constantine I Genia Populi Romani 307-9 310--30
foot end
365
25-34 f finger-bones Constans Gloria Exercitus,
1 335-7 370--90
(hand not standard
given) Valens Securitas Reipublicae 364-78
13
50+ f in pouch by Constantinopolis Victory on prow 330--41 350--70
feet House
of Fe/ Temp
Reparatio, 350--60
Constantine falling horseman (3)
37
35-49 m in mouth House
of Fe/ Temp Reparatio, 350--64 350--70
Constantine falling horseman (3)
283
35-49 m under head
Magnus Spes Romanorum (I) 387-8
390--410
Maximus
House of Salus Reipublicae (2) 388-402
Theodosius
329
adult under bowl in House of Fe/ Temp
Reparatio, 350-64 350--70
coffin Constantine falling horseman
(3)
344
adult by right hip
Diocletian Jovi Conservatori Augg 284-94 370--90
while those from Colchester Abbey Field
and Malton, and perhaps also some from Lankhills, were probably also out of circulation
(although it is difficult to be certain with the long-lived second-century aes and with third-century coins perhaps
deposited only a few decades beyond their mint date). Other examples no doubt exist
but are hard to detect, particularly where they are the only closely-dated item
among the grave goods and there is no phased vertical stratigraphy to fall back
upon for refinement or correction of the excavator's proposed terminus post quern.
The reverse types of the coins in the
Group I and Group 2 burials all have a direct relevance in the context of a sick
or dead child. Other coins, such as those framing the girl in Lankhills Grave 336
and the pierced antique coin in Poundbury Grave 370, also held a visual relevance
that went beyond use as the ferryman's
fee. At Watersmeet, Huntingdon, another pertinent late Roman grave contained an
antique copper-alloy unit of Tasciovanus (late first century s.c.) that had been
placed either in the mouth or on the eye of a male juvenile. 83 The horse on the
reverse prompts association with Epona in her role as a goddess of death and the
underworld. 84 The coin also adds a new twist to this study, as it provides not
only a companion for the dead youth on the journey to the afterlife, but also a
direct message to the underworld. A product of the mint at Verlamion, the coin bears
the letters VIR beneath the horse. The skeleton is that of a child/ adolescent,
perhaps a boy who had past his fourteenth year and so had acquired the legal status
of a man ( vir), making the coin a token
of absolute proof in the afterlife that he had indeed reached this stage in life.
Other pertinent coins include two Urbs
Roma coins with wolf and twins reverse from infant graves at Ashton, Northants.,
and a burnt issue of Antoninus Pius with a funeral pyre on the reverse found in
a feature containing pyre debris at Holborough, Kent. The latter had presumably
been burnt with the body, perhaps having been placed in the mouth or hand.85 Infant
burial Tombe 67 (probably of a neonate or perinate) in the Rue Perdue cemetery at
Toumai, Belgium, contained a jug, a beaker, part of a bracelet and a coin of Constantinopolis,
reverse Victory. A bronze strap-ring used as a hinge on a wooden box, still retaining
two iron split-pins and iron escutcheons, was also in the grave, which indicates
the intentional inclusion of a range of materials. In the same cemetery a child
aged from two and a half to six years buried in Tombe 74 was accompanied by a beaker,
a fragment of a bronze bracelet, two ebony bracelets and three coins of
Constantine I: one with reverse of Marti Conserv(atori)
showing Mars with shield and spear, one with reverse Virtus Exercit(us) showing two captives sitting beneath a standard bearing
VOT XX, and the last with reverse Beata Tranquillitas
showing an altar inscribed with VOTIS XX and surmounted by a globe. There is
a military and religious slant to the reverses that matches the theme of those from
the British burials and again there seems to have been deliberate inclusion of
a range of materials. 86 A coin of Philip I found in a post-Roman cemetery in Beruges,
France, can also be included here, for it has the reverse type of a walking lion.
The coin was pierced so that the lion was upright when suspended, while the emperor's
bust was upside down. Domestic cats, like dogs, were sometimes placed in child burials
as the guide and protective companion of the infant, although incidences of this
practice are rare and some cases may be misidentifications of the bones of lap-dogs;
like lions they would have symbolised the power of death.87
These examples of the amuletic use of
coins are taken only from published sources, few of which record the reverse of
a coin or refer to a standard catalogue, and no doubt further research would show
that the practice was more widely spread. It may even have extended into the Migration
Period, as at the transitional (very late Roman to early Anglo-Saxon) cemetery in
Great Chesterford, Essex, where four out of eight inhumations with coins were infant
burials
83 Nicholson
and Crummy 2006.
84 M.
Green 1997b, 91-4, 171-5.
85 Toynbee
1962, no. 191; Henig 1974, 96, no. 36; 1977, 347; Jessup 1954, 56; 1959, 7; Philpott
1991, 210, 214.
86 Brulet
and Coulon 1977, 83-4, 88, pl. 15.67, pl. 17.74.
87 Bertrand 2003, 64; Henig 1977, 356;
Luff 1993, 134; Webster 2005, 187; Hunter 2003, 60. First- to second-century boxes
fitted with lion-headed studs have been described as purpose-made funerary caskets,
but more recent work has shown that they were made for daily use as storage boxes
for jewellery, toilet articles, and clothes. Lion studs occur in non-funerary contexts
and Philpott recorded instances where the cremated bone had not always been
placed inside the box. In one such burial, the box was certainly old; it had a replacement
lock and a broken hinge, and had been deposited open in the grave to display its
contents, which included at least one peplos. Lion studs symbolised protection of
a box's contents, their funerary significance may have enhanced the choice of a
box as a grave deposit, but the boxes were not made to be buried. Borrill 1981,
315-16; Philpott 1991, 13-14, table A4; Riha 2001, passim; Network Archaeology, site CMGOl, report in preparation (Section
13, Archaeological Site 3, cremation 13255, excavated under laboratory conditions).
and they contained twelve out of the total
of seventeen coins. Of the other four graves one was of an older child and another
an adolescent-adult, leaving only two coins deriving from mature adult inhumations.
One 0-2-month-old infant had a coin of Gallienus with panther reverse by the feet
and an iron finger-ring by the head, and a 12-18-month-old had an amber bead and
a pierced coin of Claudius II with an altar on the reverse strung around the
neck; both burials may be early. In a grave dated to A.D. 450-500 a girl aged 10--12
years held a coin of Lucilla with lunoni Lucinae
reverse in her left hand; the goddess watched over childbirth and is a maternal
protective image. A coin of Tetricus I with Fides
Militum reverse had been placed on the skull of a young man aged 15-25 years
in a burial that Evison considered to be of a Romano-Briton. The image can be seen
both as a comment on achievement and as protective. 88
Quite how antique coins came to be available
for deposition so long after their period of circulation is not clear. They may
be accidental finds of either hoards or casual losses, and in some cases here, such
as the denarius of Julia Maesa from Butt Road Grave 278, the hoard explanation seems
fitting. However, the wear noted on some of the coins from these burials suggests
that they had been both in circulation and/or used as prophylactic amulets for some
considerable time before deposition, as has also been noted for pierced antique
coins found in late and post-Roman contexts in France.89 Whether they were deliberately
removed from circulation for this purpose or were collected later from accidental
finds is unlikely ever to be determined, but their prolonged use shows that a belief
in the potency of antique coins as amulets was long-lived.
It is far more difficult to detect
deliberate selection with fourth-century issues, of which many have a martial reverse
or show Victory. Some evidence of selection can nevertheless be detected. Table
5 shows the fourth-century coins from burials at Lankhills by the character of
the reverse, with repeated images in a single grave counting only once, and also
by the number of times the image occurs as a percentage of the graves in each age
group. The final column shows the greatest number of individual (different) images
in any one grave in that age group. Percentages appear high because of the small
number of burials. Images of Victory occur in burials of infants, older children
and adults, which might imply some evidence for selection over other reverses. Only
in adult burials is Victory represented by a wreath. There is a preference for Gloria Romanorum in infant burials, but it
is lost if all the martial images are combined. Older children had a wider range
of reverse types than any other group, including the maternal/dog image of the suckling
wolf, and also the greatest number of individual images in any one grave were those
found with the older child in Grave 336 (FIG. 14). The most important point raised
by Table 5 may be the distinction it implies between local practice at Lankhills
and at Butt Road, where infants but no older children had coins and most were clearly
amuletic (Table 3).
TABLE 5. REVERSE IMAGES OF FOURTH-CENTURY
COINS IN GRAVES AT LANKHILLS BY AGE GROUP
(No.: the number of graves with that image
or image type. %: percentage of the number of graves in that age group.)
|
Age (years)
|
Wolf & twins
|
Sol
|
|
Chi-Rho
|
Victory/ wreath
|
Gloria Other Romanorum martial
|
Genio Populi Romani
|
Maximum number of
|
|||||||
|
|
No.
|
%
|
No.
|
%
|
No.
|
%
|
No.
|
%
|
No.
|
%
|
No.
|
%
|
No.
|
%
|
individual
images in any
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
one grave
|
|
0-3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
66
|
2
|
66
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
|
4--12
|
|
20
|
|
20
|
|
20
|
2
|
40
|
|
|
3
|
60
|
|
|
5
|
|
13-17
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I
|
100
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I
|
|
adult
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
|
16
|
66
|
4
|
16
|
9
|
37
|
|
4
|
3
|
88 Evison
1994, 45-6, 49-51, 86-7, 96, 102, 106, 113, Graves 29, 71, I l l and 149.
89 Bertrand
2003, 64.
In summary, when a coin in a Roman period
infant grave is very old or antique, and/or it is perforated, then there is good
reason to suppose that it has been deliberately selected for use either as an agent
of beneficial magic during illness, or as a guardian image for the afterlife, or
both. Such an interpretation is more difficult to support for fourth-century coins,
but this should not prevent consideration of coin reverses as meaningful in funerary
contexts.
THE AMIABLE BEAR, ARTEMIS AND CHILDREN
Looking beyond its use as a commodity
in the leisure and military economies of the Roman Empire, the bear has always been
deeply embedded in the myth-making traditions of northern Europe, Asia and America
as a powerful protective force, and in the Roman period, as at other times, the
animal was undoubtedly attributed with many layers of symbolic meaning. Ursus arctos, the brown bear native to Europe
and other regions, shares with humans a considerable number of behavioural and physical
characteristics, some of which have brought the two species into direct competition
for millennia, such as sheltering in caves, building forest shelters from vegetation,
standing erect, swimming, climbing trees and an omnivorous diet, most particularly
fruit, honey and fish.90 The face of the bear is quite similar to that of man, especially
from the front, and when skinned the animal is shown to be slimmer than the thick
pelt implies, making the likeness appear even closer, while a man wearing a bear-pelt
could be taken as one of the beasts. These resemblances have given rise in many
societies at many periods to stories of humans being reared by bears or shape-shifting
to bear form, with shamans of several northern cultures and Viking berserkers being
among the latter. Euphemistic names used among peoples who regarded direct reference
to the animal as taboo stress the concept of relationship, such as 'old man' in
Sweden, 'old claw man' and 'fur father' in Siberia, 'little uncle' in the Carpathians,
'the old man with the fur garment' in Lapland, and 'cousin' and 'grandfather' among
several native North American tribes.91
Several myths illustrate the tangle of
human and bear recognised by the Greeks, some belonging to a prevailing myth in
the eastern Mediterranean of a divine child with an animal nurse. Atalanta, the
virgin huntress of Arcadia, was exposed in the forest by her father, but was nursed
by a bear sent by Artemis and then raised by hunters. The infant Zeus Kynosaura
was hidden from his father in a cave in western Crete and his nurse was later turned
into the Little Bear. There is evidence of a bear cult in the cave, still known
today as the cave of Arkouda, the she-bear.92 When the nymph Kallisto, a virgin
dedicated to Artemis, took Zeus as her lover, Artemis (or Hera) turned her into
a bear, but the son born from their union, Areas (credited with founding Arcadia),
was born fully human. As an adult hunter he unknowingly attacked his mother, but
Zeus (or Artemis) took pity on them and set them together among the stars, Kallisto
as the constellation of the Great Bear, Ursa Major, and Areas as either Ursa Minor
or, alternatively, the bright star Arcturus in the constellation of BoOtes, which
lies close to the Great and Little Bear.93 'Areas' and the first element of 'Arcturus'
both derive from Greek arktos (bear),
and a similar but earlier origin may lie behind 'Artemis'.
The close association of Artemis with
both the bear and children is further reflected in her cult practices and in some
of her epithets. Girls between the ages of five and ten devoted to her cult at
90 Shepard and Sanders 1992, 121-5; Brunner
2007, 1-2. Studies of the diet of both ancient and modern ursus arctos populations stress the small part played by meat in the
animals' diet, unless made easily available by man's herding practices: Dahle et al. 1998; Bocherens et al. 2004.
91 Shepard
and Sanders 1992, 121-2; Brunner 2007, 4, 20--35; Sutherland 2001, 138-9; Dowson
and Porr 2001,
168-71; Kalevala, Runo 46, 497-532.
92 Price
1978, 81-2, 88.
93 Ovid,
Fasti 2.153-92; Brunner 2007, 21.
FIG. 15. Krater fragments from Brauron showing a priestess
and a male worshipper wearing bear masks.
Only parts of the surviving sherds are shown. Not to scale. (After Kahil
1979)
Brauron and Munichia in Attica were
known as arktoi (little bears), and their
adult carers appear to have dressed as bears, a reflection of the she-bear's nurturing
aspect. Both carers and children also dressed in robes the colour of a bear's pelt.
Fragments of a krater found at Brauron
show both a priestess conducting the mysteries at her festival (arkteia) with hands raised in prayer and
a male worshipper wearing bear masks (FIG. 15).94 As well as presiding over the
fecundity of animals and their death in the hunt, Artemis was also concerned with
childbirth and child rearing: as Artemis Lochia she cared for women in childbirth
and as Artemis Hegemone she was leader of children. Diodorus Siculus records her
as Artemis Kourotrophos, skilled in healing young children and in knowing which
foods were suitable for babies. Kourotrophos
is usually applied to goddesses depicted as nursing mothers, which might be
thought inappropriate for the virgin Artemis, but her dual nature is manifested
through the bear Artemis-Kallisto in both the story of Atalanta and in the Attic
sanctuaries. She was also regarded as a substitute mother for orphaned children,
reflected at her sanctuary at Brauron by the dedication of the clothing of women
who died in childbirth, and by sarcophagus decorations showing a bear watching over
the parting of a child from a dying mother.95 Early indications of the Artemis cult
in Greece point to her having a strong chthonic role, and she was also a giver of
wise counsel; at Athens she was honoured as the architect of the victories at Marathon
and Salamis. Both textual references and excavation finds suggest that her origins
lay beyond Greece, perhaps in Anatolia; the cult statue of the goddess that Apollo
orders Orestes to steal in Iphigenia in Tauris
was located by Euripides in Scythia.96 •
Votive images or figurines of bears have
been found at sanctuaries of Artemis and at one, Lousoi (Achaea), many votive bear
teeth were found. Bears were also sacrificed to the goddess; at Patras (Achaea)
live bear cubs were thrown onto a bonfire together with game animals. Though bears
were victims at some cult sites, at others the reverse was true. One story of the
foundation of the cult at Brauron has it that when her sacred bear was killed by
an Athenian youth Artemis ravaged the city with a plague and agreed to remove it
only if a number of girls
94 Rothwell
2007, 18-19, 42, 230; Kahil 1979, 80-1, pl. 34; Burkert 1985, 151; Bevan 1986, 19;
1987, 18-19.
95 Price 1978, 1-2, 140-1, 189-90; Diodorus, Biblio. Hist. 5.73.5; Bevan 1987, 19-20.
96 Kahil
1979, 75-8, 84-5; see also Blagg 1986, 212; Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 1446-8.
served her as arktoi. Another version based on the Artemis sanctuary at Piraeus held
that the goddess demanded the sacrifice of a girl as compensation for the bear's
death.97 Kahil considers that the cult of Artemis may have preceded that of Athena,
both on the Acropolis and in the affections of the city. That the association of
the goddess with the bear survived into the Roman period in Greece is demonstrated
by a terracotta bear of that date recovered from the Acropolis at Athens, where
the cult of Artemis Brauronia had a temple.98
As well as the theriomorphism, inter-species
mixing and ambiguous attitudes to bears that appear in these myths and cult practices,
there are also strong elements of rebirth, resurrection, and guardianship. A link
between the bear and rebirth is provided by the animals emerging from the caves
or shelters where they have hibernated, particularly the females with their cubs.
Pliny erroneously believed that the young were born as blind, hairless, amorphous
scraps of flesh that were licked into shape by their mother, granting peculiar and
almost miraculous power to her maternal instincts, an idea that persisted to at
least medieval times.99 The bear's habit of hibernation is linked more widely to
death and rebirth by some northern peoples, who also credited the creature with
the defeat of night and winter darkness to ensure the return of the sun. The parallels
to elements of Graeco-Roman mythology regarding the solar cycle and the journey
to the afterlife are clear, with the bear cast in the roles taken by major deities.
100 The protective bear also appears in apotropaic carvings dated to c. A.D. 1174 flanking the door of the leaning
campanile at Pisa. They show beneficent animals defending the entrance from dragons
- a bear and bull on one side, a bear and ram on the other. In medieval bestiaries
and other sources the dragon represented the Devil, the ram and bull were symbols
of physical vigour, while the bear was noted for the careful nurture of its young
and a knowledge of healing plants - its characteristics inherited unchanged from
Artemis Kourotrophos. 101
An inscription in Zurich to Diana and
Silvanus, set up by a group of ursarii, was
inspired not by the bear being seen as her habitual (or even occasional) companion
but by the prowess of Artemis-Diana as a hunter. Depictions of Silvanus with a bear
clearly emphasise the animal as a victim of the hunt, one of the resources of
the god's forest habitat. He was venerated by the ursarii for the protection he could provide when they entered the forest
in search of that resource, just as he was worshipped by others in a wide variety
of occupations associated with the natural resources of woods and forests: farm
managers, timber workers, carpenters, quarrymen, hunters, and metal-workers dependent
on charcoal to feed their hearths. to2 It is only as a symbol of her nurturing aspect
that the bear represents Artemis, and it is no doubt pertinent that there is only
one small bear among the very large collection of amber amuletic pendants and figurines
from Aquileia, despite its proximity to mountainous regions such as the Julian Alps
and Dolomites. The Brescia ceramic bear-lamp, from the edge of the Dolomites, seems
to demonstrate the tradition of depositing a light in burials yet may also refer
to Artemis, who was often shown bearing a torch. to3
The characteristics of the bear preserved
in medieval bestiaries and its appearance among the benign guard,ian beasts on the
campanile at Pisa provide evidence for the longevity of myths and folk tales concerning
Artemis in her animal guise and show that such ideas and iconography also survived
for centuries at a public level. Although the Roman Diana took on many of the
97
Bevan 1987, 17-18.
98 Kahil
1979, 79, 84--5; Bevan 1987, 20.
99 Pliny,
Hist. Nat. 8.54; Isidore of Seville, Etymologies 12.2.22; Bartholomeus Anglicus,
De Prop. Rerum 18; Payne 1990, 42.
100
Marazzi 1986.
101 Payne
1990, 42, 52-3, 82.
102 Dorcey
1989, 27 note 70, 54--83, 89, 143, 146, 153 note 4; 1992, 105-34.
103
Calvi 2005, Tav. 46, fig. 2, a; von
Gonzenbach 1995, 224--5; Kahil 1979, 77-8, 84.
roles of Artemis, particularly regarding
childbirth, 104 no seamless line of iconography can be traced between the Greek
cult and the bear figurines found in Germany, Gaul and Britain. The animal's nurturing
aspect probably existed at the level of folk religion in many communities, exemplified
by the cult of Dea Artio in the Rhine-Moselle area, by the bear figurines in infant
burials, and perhaps also by Mercury Artaios in the Rhone-Alpes region, since Mercury
was a benign deity who interceded with the gods on behalf of humans. An etymological
connection between Artemis and Artio/Artaios seems a reasonable assumption, as well
as one between all three and the root of an ancient word for bear.
It may be that the bear-mother goddess
represented by the late Roman jet bears in Britain was a direct transmission rather
than an indigenous cult. None are from mountainous or wild regions and their recovery
from the major urban centres of Colchester and York and the military establishment
at Malton, all in the east and all places most open to continental influence, defies
any assumption that they were associated with a local folk deity of forested mountains,
a description that could be applied to Artio or Mercury Artaios. In Abbey Field
C2 Fl66 at Colchester, a burial rich with classical Roman rather than indigenous
Romano-British imagery, the bear's association with a silver lunula pendant and
a silver ring with a stag intaglio (FIG. 2, 3-4) even hints that she may have been
Artemis herself, while the jet bear found at York on a site with evidence for ritual
activity may point to a cult of the goddess.
IDENTITY
Most infants and older children went to
the afterlife entirely unaccompanied by any image or object, and, therefore, the
families of children buried with these grave goods must have been in some way 'different'
from the main body of the population. Both groups of graves defined here show considerable
consistency in their choice of grave goods, especially Group 1, which suggests motivation
by a common religious and social identity, perhaps membership of a small cult or
of a much larger one which tapped into or subsumed regional beliefs. The deceased
in graves that contain noticeably 'different' artefacts in Britain in the late Roman
period are frequently identified either as military personnel of continental origin
and their families or as devotees of a common religion. Other factors might also
be pertinent; Allason-Jones has defined travellers moving around the Empire and
gift exchange as two reasons for the widely scattered distribution of rare object
types, and Cool has also pointed out that the Roman elite often had estates in
more than one province and moved between them. 105
It would be easy to place both the Group
1 and Group 2 graves into either the military or the religious group, or both. The
graves containing jet bears are from urban and/or military sites. The black glass
beads and probably also those of amber in some Group 2 graves are of Germanic origin,
whilst the choice of martial images as symbols of paternal protection on the
coins in both Group 1 and Group 2 burials may be direct personal references to soldier
fathers. Although no specifically late Roman military establishment has yet been
found in or immediately adjacent to Colchester, it does lie on the Saxon Shore and
its port would have been a suitable landing point for ships setting out from the
mouth of the Rhine with troops transferred from the Continent. Troop movements such
as these may account for the scatter of late Roman military equipment from the town.106
The strands of religious thought are more
complex and the presence of both maternal and military images in Abbey Field C2
F 166 are a reminder that one grave can reflect the differing
104
Gordon 1932; Blagg 1986.
105
Allason-Jones 2002, 131; Cool 2002b,
147.
106
Hawkes 1981; N. Crummy 1983, 136-9;
1992, 191.
religious beliefs and familial roles and
concerns of both parents. The graves containing resurrection images in both Group
l and Group 2 graves may point to members of one of the eastern cults. Black minerals
were popular in the period and also resonate with the colour of mourning clothes
and the cult of Cybele. The York burial with both a jet bear and a coin reverse
of Sol Invictus also hints at a pagan
belief in rebirth and resurrection, and some of the Butt Road infants with coin
amulets and black mineral jewellery had been buried in a Christian cemetery. Given
the military nature of several of the coin reverses, together with a belief in resurrection,
the worship of Mithras, the soldier's god, cannot be discounted. Where several amulets
are present there is an accumulation of apotropaic power generated by coloured and
shining objects, gendered objects, wild creatures such as the bears, dog teeth and
?Ethiopian head (and see other creatures in Appendix 1), noise-making objects, electrostatic
objects, as well as the military and maternal imagery of the coins. The interpretation
of the bears hinges upon whether they can be seen as both wild and maternal, and
therefore evidence for a folk cult of a bear-mother goddess who shared, even if
very distantly and loosely, those attributes of Artemis-Kallisto associated with
childbirth and child-rearing and the knowledge of the healing plants appropriate
for sick children. The figurines may have 'officiated' at many successful lyings-in,
or represented the goddess as part of the religious enhancement of medical treatment,
before being deposited with a dead infant, which would account for their varying
degrees of wear.
The collections of amulets in Butt Road
Grave 278 and Abbey Field C2 F166 (which also contained the largest and most elaborate
bear) and the magnificent jewellery in Lankhills Grave 336 and Chelmsford T9 all
imply access to a considerable degree of wealth, but the token single jet beads
with the Malton and York bears, together with the damaged state of the Malton bear
and the degree of wear on the second York bear and on many of the coins, are much
more in keeping with the inherent power of the objects than with a display of
wealth.
Another group of 'different' parents in
Britain is represented by those few families (only seventeen recovered to date)
who raised tombstones for their children and inscribed them with commemorative epithets.107
This is more certainly an indication of wealth, although geographically skewed to
those areas of Roman Britain with suitable stone for tombstones. Although the funerary
rites associated with both groups mark them out as distinctive within the general
run of Romano-British burials, the link between the two groups of families is not
economic status but a deeply personal understanding of the concept of mors immatura, the unnatural early death
of a family member. Both the tombstone-raising families and the protective-image-depositing
families wished to express their grief in tangible form, but differed in the means
of expression. The former raised a visible, public, formal, above-ground memorial,
and the other deposited private, below-ground items only visible in the underworld.
108 The first group derived comfort from
making a public statement, the second from their belief in the power of the buried
objects to protect. This latter belief conveys both a sense of determination to
protect the child by all possible means in life and a general perception of the
reality not only of the dangers of the afterlife but also of the beings who could
be called upon to act as parental substitutes, a view grounded in and bolstered
by a long tradition of supplying the dead with necessities for the afterlife. To
them a display of status was less important than the child's need for protection,
which was therefore provided in the form of amulets and other tokens invoking chthonic
beings as guardians. Once buried, the objects were invisible to the living, their
effect was reserved for the dead and for those believed to watch over them.
107
RIB I, 33, 162, 164, 396, 537, 558, 566, 685 (two children), 690, 695,
934, 961, 1181, 1254, 1871, 1919.
108
Alcock 1980; Raybould 1999, 101; King
2000.
CONCLUSION
Both pagans and Christians in the classical
world believed that the souls of those who had suffered death before their time,
mars immatura, would not be at rest in
the next world but were condemned to wait until they had attained - in death -their
allotted span of years, usually sufficient for them to reach maturity, marry and
reproduce before dying in old age. They included neo- or perinatal infants, children
and juveniles, women who died in childbirth, criminals who were unjustly executed,
soldiers, suicides, and victims of accidents and murder. The early third century
Christian writer Tertullian believed that the untimely dead wandered the earth,
while Virgil portrayed them as lingering before the gates of Hades, with the souls
of the infants crying pitifully. Both Homer and Virgil described how the journey
of these unhappy souls to a final rest could be hastened by providing them with
a fitting burial and also with gifts for them to use to pass further on into the
circles of Hades. 109 A corollary to these beliefs is demonstrated in the infant
and child graves discussed here, the provision of protection in the form of amulets
and images of guardians.
The diversity and syncretism of religious
ideas and superstitions weave a rich tapestry of beliefs that can make it difficult
to extract a single thread of thought underpinning the selection of burial deposits.
The interpretation and discussion sections of this paper have therefore ranged widely
over the ideas that lay behind the choice of objects deposited in the infant burials
examined here, and have touched upon the extension of similar beliefs into the medieval
period. Coin reverses and jet bears as well as more obvious amulets, such as pierced
canines and lunula pendants, have been shown to unite in common themes of motherhood,
physical protection and chthonic protection, ensuring that infants and older children
did not travel to the next life alone and unguarded. The use of the image of the
nurturing bear attests to a specific group of people in Roman Britain who shared
what was probably a widespread, if scattered and unconnected, folk belief in a bear-mother
deity. The protective relevance of coin reverses is one that deserves further exploration,
not least for resurrection images on fourth-century coins, but can only
·be substantiated by further examples
provided by the careful on-site recording and lifting of coins from all burials,
not just those of infants, the preservation of the record throughout post excavation
conservation and analysis, and the dissemination of these details together with
a full description of the coin.
APPENDIX 1: OTHER ANIMALS MADE OF BLACK MINERALS
Only jet animals carved in the round are
listed here. Narrower representations, such as a jet hare from Silchester and a
jet eagle head from Colchester, are probably parts of knife handles. The Silchester
animal was identified by Lawson as a lion, but it is almost certainly a hare. The
missing tail must be a scut as it rises from the rump, rather than extending behind
it or drooping downwards as would a feline or canine tail. The position of the long
hind legs and the forward crouch are also hare-like, and can be compared with hare
plate-brooches. Also not included here are two jet arena figure groups from Germany:
one from Speyer shows a lion attacking a venator
and the other, from Trier, shows a lion crouched on the back of a bull and biting
its neck.110
Many of the jet figurines from Britain
and Germany are linked, directly or indirectly, to burials: a lion from a grave
at Chelmsford, a hare from grave fill in Colchester, a snail from a grave at Cologne,
a lion from the same cemetery at Cologne (but with no record of direct association
with a burial), and a rather enigmatic figurine (lioness or tiger) found close to
both baby and lamb burials at Chew Park in Somerset.
109
Ter Vrugt-Lentz 1960, 62-3, 66 note
3, 67-78; Martin-Kilcher 2000, 63; Ogden 2002, 148-51; Virgil, Aeneid 6.426-
530; Tertullian, de Anima 56-7; Homer, J/iad 23.62-76.
110 Lawson 1976, fig. 14, 104; N. Crummy
1992, fig. 5.61, 1703; for a well-preserved hare brooch, see Hattatt 1989, fig.
221; Hagen 1937, 139-40, Taf. 37.
FIG. 16. Jet lions
from (1) Cologne and (2) Chelmsford. (No.
1 after Hagen 1937, No. 2 after Drury 1988)
The Chelmsford lion clasps a human head
between its paws, a funerary symbol of the all-devouring jaws of death, and the
damaged Cologne lion almost certainly also held a head (FIG. 16). The protective
use of felines has been noted above, and Henig has linked the Chelmsford lion to
Dionysus-Bacchus. 111 As an image of fertility the hare may also be an appropriate
creature to place in a burial; it was a major repeating
motif on a samian bowl used as a burial
urn in an infant grave at Argenton-sur-Creuse, France, suggesting that it had a
chthonic meaning specifically with infants, perhaps connected to the high mortality
rate among leverets. 112 The symbolism of the edible snail from Cologne may lie
in the species' fertility, or may be solely implicit in the jet from which it was
made. Alternatively, the shell, the house carried upon its back, may refer to domestic
protection for a dead child.
York
A jet bear associated with a shale bangle
was found in 2006 in a pit on the site of a medieval cemetery that had disturbed
earlier Roman features (FIG. 8). It is very short, a feature that may have been
dictated by the available piece of jet or it may be intended to represent a cub
rather than an adult animal. The surface is worn and has many fine scratches. 113
Cologne
There are no details regarding the context of a jet bear close in style to those
from Trier, Malton and Colchester Abbey Field. Like them it has been carved in the
act of walking, with its head swinging to the left; it is l8 mm long (FIG. 7, 3).
A small copper-alloy figurine of a seated bear cub, only 30 mm high, from a grave
found in 1902-3 in the Luxemburger Strasse cemetery to the south-west of the town
is worth noting here. It was found in what was presumed to be a child's or infant's
grave with two other small figurines, a cock and a tortoise, both animals associated
with Mercury and in a funerary context no doubt representing him in his role as
psychopomp. A link to a deity similar to Mercury Artaios, or to both Mercury and
Artio as separate divinities, is suggested by this group.114
111 See
note 87.
112 Allain
et al. 1992, 53, no. 74.1.
113
McComish 2006, 11. Information kindly
supplied by Nicola Rogers, York Archaeological Trust.
114
For the jet bear see Hagen 1937, 139,
no. J 2 1, Taf. 29, Abb. 1, left; Corder 1948, 174-5, pl. 25, d. For the copper
alloy bear, see Ritter 1994, 393, no. 69, Abb. 154, with further references; Kunz!
2003, 31, Abb. 50.
Cologne, Luxemburger
Strasse
A large jet lion of highly stylised form,
length 80 mm, came from the area of the south-west cemetery at Cologne. Its massive
head bends down towards the front paws, which may have clasped a human head, now
missing (FIG. 16, 1)."s
Cologne,
Luxemburger Strasse, Grave 152
This grave, also from the south-west cemetery,
contained a jet figurine of an edible snail, 32 mm high, with the lines of the shell
inlaid with gold.116
South Shields
An unfinished shale animal head from South
Shields, identified as a fox. If this is all that remains of an intended composite
figurine, then the finished product would have been substantially larger than any
of the jet bears. No stratigraphy is attached to the object. 117
Chelmsford,
Orchard Hall site, T9
During excavations by Chelmsford Archaeological
Trust in 1972-73 a large collection of jet jewellery, a shattered glass pipette
bottle, two black-burnished ware dishes (one inverted over the other), and a figurine
of a lion were found at one side of a large pit. A few iron nails with traces of
oak suggested that some, or perhaps all, of these objects had been contained in
a wooden box. The assemblage was defined as T9 and dated to the first half of the
fourth century. 118
The lion is 45 mm long, stands on a small
platform, and clasps a human head between its forepaws (FIG. 16, 2). A hole, now
damaged, was drilled through the mouth to provide a means of suspension. The jewellery
consists of a necklace of cylindrical jet beads with a Medusa-head pendant in the
centre; a necklace of jet interlocking beads, carefully graded to increase in size
towards the centre of the string; two jet hairpins; a shale bracelet; and a bracelet
or wrist-strap of jet Junette and cylindrical beads. The lion lay close to a cluster
of jet interlocking beads and was probably part of that necklace. 119
Several characteristics of T9 indicate
that the feature was an inhumation burial of a young woman, probably an adolescent,
rather than a hoard deposit. First, the soil was very acidic and both bones and
nails are unlikely to have survived well. Second, a body image is provided by the
relationships between the beads, the shale bracelet, and the hairpins (FIG. 17).
The pins lay on the left side of the head, the beads passed fully around the neck,
so that some lay at the back of the head, and the bracelet was on the left
wrist. The glass vessel would have lain close to the left hand, or may have even
been placed within it. The body images of adult inhumation G537 and infant inhumation
G503 (FIG. 10, A) at Butt Road were similarly defined by jewellery. Third, the inversion
of one dish over the other suggests the deposition of food for a dead person and
the position of the pots suggests that they were placed outside the head end of
a coffin. At Butt Road all but one of the ceramic vessels from Period 2 graves were
placed outside the coffin, just under half at the head end. Fourth, Drury estimated
the minimum size of a box needed to contain the jewellery to be about 0.9 by 0.3
m. This is much longer than would be expected for a jewellery box, but a coffin
that could contain an adolescent burial based on the body plan defined above would
measure about 1.5 by
0.5 m, leaving space in the grave for
the dishes to lie outside the coffin. 120
115
Hagen 1937, 140, no. J 9, Taf. 40.
116 Hagen 1937, 139, no. J 1, Taf. 28, Abb. 2.
117
Allason-Jones and Mike! 1984, no.
7.170.
118 Drury
1988, 46, 48; Cool 2002b, table 10.2; Going 1988, 49.
119 Henig
and Wickenden 1988, 107-10; Drury 1988, fig. 37.
120 N. Wickenden, pers. comm.; Drury 1988, fig. 39; Cool 2002b; N. Crummy et al. 1993, 151-2, table 2.60, fig. 2.75,
e and for other fully decayed adult skeletons at Butt Road see fig. 2.67, b, g and
fig. 2.85, c, i. For jewellery boxes see Borrill 1981, 304; N. Crummy 1983, fig. 91; Niblett 1985, 25-6; Stead and Rigby 1986, figs 27-8, 30; Croom 2002, pl. 8, fig. 76.
|
FIG. 17. Plan of
black mineral jewellery and vessels in Chelmsford
T9. The line of an animal burrow is shown by the central trail of beads. (After Drury 1988)
Chew Park
Excavations in the 1940s and 1950s at
the Roman villa in Chew Park, Somerset, uncovered the skeleton of a young infant
close to an inside wall in Room III. Specialist reports do not agree on the age
at death, which is given as either newborn, possibly premature, or about seven
months old. Ten deposits of sheep and lamb bones were also found in the villa, with
up to seventeen individuals represented and only one a complete skeleton; two were
in the same room as the child. These features were not sealed and later robbing
has
FIG. 18. Jet feline
and jewellery from Chew Park villa. Scale
1:1. (After Rahtz and Greenfield 1977)
made their interpretation difficult.
They were described as either foundation burials or as perhaps intrusive, post-dating
the use of the villa. 121
Room V, adjacent to Room III, produced
a number of objects, including five of jet: a figurine of a tiger or lioness, 49
mm long (FIG. 18, 1), the upper part of a hairpin with faceted cuboid head (FIG.
18, 2), a damaged triangular or lunette bead with four perforations (FIG. 18, 3),
a long cylinder bead (FIG. 18, 4), and a Hercules club knife handle (FIG. 18, 5).
The feet of the figurine are missing, but were probably set on a platform. Suspension
holes are drilled both into and across the snarling mouth with its bared teeth.
122 Considering the later robbing on this site, there is some possibility that all
five jet objects (a remarkable number for casual loss in one area) derive from either
the infant burial in Room III or from a similar disturbed burial in Room V.
Colchester, Butt Road, fill of Grave 444
A large jet hare figurine, 72 mm long,
lay in the fill of G444, with one end embedded in the wood stain of the coffin's
end-board. The animal lacks its head and the front of the base, and its use as a
grave deposit is far from certain.123
APPENDIX 2: GRAVE DEPOSITS RELATED TO
GROUP 2
Colchester, Butt Road, Grave 1
A ten-year-old girl was buried with a
suite of jewellery that included a copper-alloy bracelet fitted with a copper-alloy
bell with an iron clapper and a blue glass bead with pale blue trail flanked by
thin margins of red. The bracelet was of amateurish manufacture, consisting of a
single strand of round-section copper-alloy wire around which was wrapped, rather
irregularly, a thin rectangular strand of copper-alloy wire plated
121
Rahtz and Greenfield 1977, 52, 383,
fig. 26, pl. 9b.
122
Rahtz and Greenfield 1977, fig. 112,
1-5, pl. 29a; Toynbee 1977.
123
N. Crummy 1983, fig. 175, 4277; N.
Crummy et al. 1993, 130.
with white metal. The grave post-dates
A.D. 364, and two black glass beads on a necklace in the grave confirm a date in
the very late fourth or the early fifth century. 124
Winchester, Lankhills, Grave 370
No coins in infant graves at Lankhills
had been perforated for suspension, but the position of one suggests a link to some
of the coins in the Group 2 graves. Grave 370 was the burial of a nine-month-old
child in which a single coin had been placed in or near the left hand. The coin
was of Valentinian I, reverse Gloria Romanorum
(A.D. 364-375), and so possibly contemporary with the burial, which is
dated stratigraphically to A.D. 370-390. It could be seen simply as the ferryman's
fee, but is included here because of the age of the child and the use of the
left hand.12s
Winchester, Lankhills, Grave 289
This grave, stratigraphically dated to
A.D. 390-410, is the only other young infant burial at Lankhills with coins. Three
coins had been placed in the infant's mouth: Constantinopolis, reverse Victory on
prow (A.D. 330-341), House of Valentinian, reverse Gloria Romanorum (A.D. 364-378), and House of Theodosius, reverse Salus Reipublicae (A.D. 388--408).126
Winchester, Lankhills, Grave 336
The child in the well-furnished burial
G336, dated to A.D. 350-370, was aged between seven and twelve years. 127 The full
set of grave goods comprised: one silver and four copper-alloy metal hairpins, set
in a pile to the right of the head; a pottery beaker to the left of the head together
with a length of copper-alloy
wire (possibly part of a bracelet); two
necklaces of glass, bone and coral beads; a group of coral beads found in the same
area, but seemingly not part of either necklace; a copper-alloy bracelet on the
lower right arm or wrist and two coins of Magnentius, reverses Victoriae DD NN Avg et Cae and Salus DD NN Avg et Cae (A.D. 350-353, 350-364)
close to the right wrist; ten bracelets on the lower left arm, six of bronze and
four of bone; a silver ring and two coins of Constantius II, reverses Fe/ Temp Reparatio, falling horseman (A.D.
350-361) among the bones of the left hand; two copper-alloy finger-rings, a pile
of beads (probably a bracelet), and two coins, one of Constantine I, reverse Soli lnvicto Comiti (A.D. 310-313), and one
of Constantine II, reverse Gloria Exercitus
(A.D. 330-335), to the left of the feet; a jet spindlewhorl and an iron barrel-padlock
key with two copper-alloy rings hooked onto one end in a pouch to the right of the
feet; and a single glass board game counter beyond the feet in the centre of that
end of the coffin. 128
Poundbury, Grave 370
Coins deposited in graves in the late
Roman cemetery at Poundbury were generally contemporary issues placed in adult burials
as ferryman's fees, but that in G370 differed from the majority by being both antique
and perforated. The grave cut was 1.3 m long and 0.66 m wide, both longer and wider
than an infant burial but short for an adult. Coffin nails were only found at the
west end, suggesting that the coffin was shorter than the grave, and no bones survived.
Both factors support the interpretation that this was a child burial. A pile of
unidentified animal bones lay in the south-east corner of the grave and the coin,
an antoninianus of Postumus, reverse Laetitia
Aug (A.D. 260-268), was found at the west end. There were no other grave goods.129
124 N. Crummy
1983, fig. 41, 1610 (+ 548, 1808); N. Crummy et al. 1993, tables 2.52, 2.55, 2.67; Guido 1999, 18.
125
Clarke 1979, table 2; Reece 1979,
table 30.
126 ibid.
127
From a reassessment of the human bone
by R. Gowland of Durham University, pers. comm.
128
Clarke 1979, table 2; Reece 1979,
table 30; Guido 1979, 299.
129
Sparey-Green 1987, microfiche 2; Sparey-Green
and Reece 1993, table 8; Farwell and Molleson 1993, 84. Several of the original
identifications in the 1987 Poundbury coin list have been corrected in the 1993
tables.
Watersmeet, Huntingdon
In a late Roman grave at Watersmeet, Huntingdon,
a copper-alloy coin of Tasciovanus (late first century B.C.) had been placed either
in the mouth or on the eye of a juvenile. The reverse of the coin shows a horse
(see Discussion). 130
Holborough, Kent
A burnt coin of Antoninus Pius with a
funeral pyre on the reverse was found in a feature containing pyre debris at Holborough,
Kent. It had presumably been burnt with the body, perhaps having been placed in
the mouth or hand.131
Ashton, Northamptonshire
Two Constantinian Urbs Roma coins found in the fill of infant
graves may have been placed there deliberately. 132
Winchester, Lankhills, Grave 164
An Urbs Roma coin was placed over the right eye of a seven-year-old child.
133
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am particularly grateful to Joanna Bird
for her interest, encouragement and several useful suggestions and references. Thanks
for their help, whether practical or theoretical, are also due to Anne-Maria Bojko,
Emma Hogarth and Dr P.R. Sealey (all of Colchester and Ipswich Museums), Emma Spurgeon
and Philip Crummy (Colchester Archaeological Trust), Clara Morgan (Museums Sheffield),
Nicola Rogers (York Archaeological Trust), Jolanda Studer (Historisches Museum Bern), Frank Wiggle
(Malton Museum Foundation), Dr
S. Faust (Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier),
Lindsay Allason-Jones (University of Newcastle upon Tyne), Rella Eckardt (University
of Reading), Rebecca Gowland (Durham University), Elizabeth Hartley (Yorkshire Museum),
Adrian James (Society of Antiquaries of London Library), Dr D. Bozic (Institut za
arheologijo ZRC-SAZU, Ljubljana), Johan Nicolay (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Kathy
Saas (Provinciaal Archeologisch Museum, Velzeke), Hilary Cool, Jamie Crummy, Kate
Crummy, Martin Henig, Ruth Leary, Patrick Ottaway and Richard Reece.
Images were generously provided by York Archaeological Trust, Museums Sheffield,
Colchester Archaeological Trust, Colchester and Ipswich Museums, and the Bern Historisches
Museum. I am indebted to Emma Spurgeon, Ben Holloway, Kate Orr and Laura Pooley,
variously now or formerly of Colchester Archaeological Trust, for their careful
recording of coin obverse/ reverse positions from burials excavated at Colchester
in the early to mid-2000s, and to Emma Hogarth of Colchester and Ipswich Museums
for maintaining the record of position during conservation. Finally, I am also grateful
to the two anonymous referees for this paper for their most helpful criticism and
suggestions, and to the editor for allowing a late insertion.
Colchester
ninacrummy@yahoo.com
130 Nicholson
and Crummy 2006.
131
Jessup 1954; 56; 1959, 7; Philpott
1991, 210.
132 Philpott
1991, 214.
133
Clarke 1979, 149, table 2.
CIL
Kalevala
RIB I
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
Kalevala, the Land of Heroes II, trans. W.F. Kirby ( 1962), London
R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain I (1965),
Oxford
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