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Roman Spoons from Dorchester

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

O. M. Dalton
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Extract

The silver spoons in the Dorchester Museum, exhibited by Capt. Acland, F.S.A., were discovered in 1898 or 1899 on the Somerleigh Court Estate, in Dorchester, a prolific Roman site. The coins belonging to the find, over fifty in number, are all siliquae, dating from Julian II to Honorius (A. D. 360–400); among them is one coin of Licinius I, A. D. 317, which is probably intrusive. The coins, examined by my colleague, Mr. H. Mattingly, and to be published in the Numismatic Chronicle later in the present year, thus give the second half of the fourth century as the probable date of the find, a period with which the general character of the spoons is in agreement. The silver object figured with the spoons belongs to a small class represented in England and perhaps used as manicure knives. There is a specimen with a long handle and smaller blade in the British Museum.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , April 1922 , pp. 89 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1922

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References

page 90 note 1 de Rossi, Bullettino di archeologia christiana, Nov.-Dec., 1868, p. 81.

Other spoons discovered in England bear such acclamations. One, found at Colchester, has Aeternvs Vivas; another, found near Sunderland, is broken and has an imperfect inscription: —Ne VIVAS (Archaeological Journal, xxvi, 1869, p. 76)Google Scholar . An unpublished spoon found near Barbury Castle, North Wilts., and now in the Devizes Museum, has the legend VERECV, perhaps part of Verecundus, scratched within the bowl.

page 90 note 2 H. Leclercq, in Cabrol's Dictionnaire d' Archéologie chrétienne et de Liturgte, article Cuiller, col. 3175.

page 90 note 3 We may notice the occurrence of the fish in the service of pewter vessels found on the site of a Roman villa at Appleshaw, in Hampshire, and now in the British Museum; the fish is engraved on a small pointed-oval dish (Archaeologia, lvi, p. 12). Having regard to the chalice-like form of a cup belonging to this service, we may at least consider the possibility that this dish and cup may have had a sacred use, since the presence of the Chi-Rho on another vessel shows that the whole belonged to a Christian family.

page 92 note 1 What appears to be a similar head is seen on a spoon among the Roman antiquities excavated at Lydney Park, in Gloucestershire (Bathurst, W. H., Roman Antiquities at Lydney Park, with notes by King, C. W., pl. xxv, fig. 4).Google Scholar

page 93 note 1 For the antiquities of Vermand see Eck, T., Les deux cimetières gallo-romains de Vermand et de Saint-Quentin, 1891.Google Scholar