Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:35:08.940Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Gilt-Bronze Arm from London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2010

Justine Bayley ,
Ben Croxford ,
Martin Henig  and
Bruce Watson
Justine Bayley
Affiliation:
English Heritage, [email protected]
Ben Croxford
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, [email protected]
Martin Henig
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, [email protected]
Bruce Watson
Affiliation:
MoLAS, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The left hand and forearm from a slightly over life-size bronze or copper-alloy arm was excavated during 2001 at 20–30 Gresham Street, within the City of London. It was discarded in a quarry pit, which fooded with groundwater turning it into a pond and was subsequently backflled C.A.D. 60–70. The arm was presumably part of a public statue, perhaps of an emperor or god, which had been deliberately broken up. The Boudican revolt of A.D. 60/1 is one possible context for the destruction of Roman statuary in London, but the end of Nero's reign, some ten years later, is another period when any statues of this very unpopular emperor could have been broken up. The article includes a catalogue of previous fnds of bronze statuary from London (where more fragments of arms and hands have been recovered than anywhere else in Britain), the results of metallurgical examination of the arm, and a discussion of iconoclasm in Roman Britain.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 40 , November 2009 , pp. 151 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Justine Bayley, Ben Croxford, Martin Henig and Bruce Watson 2009. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blair, I., Spain, R., Swift, D., Taylor, T., and Goodburn, D. 2006: ‘Wells and bucket-chains: unforeseen elements of water supply in early Roman London’, Britannia 37, 1–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brigham, T. 1990: ‘A reassessment of the second Basilica in London, A.D. 100–400: excavations at Leadenhall Court, 1984–86’, Britannia 21, 53–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cary, E. (trans.) 1961: Dio's Roman History (Books LXI–LXX), LondonGoogle Scholar
Clay, C. 2004: ‘Iconoclasm in Roman Chester: the signifcance of the mutilated tombstones from the north wall’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 157, 1–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croxford, B. 2003: ‘Iconoclasm in Roman Britain?’, Britannia 34, 81–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croxford, B. 2007: Sculpture from Roman Britain: Aspects of Origin, Use, Disuse and Deposition, unpub. PhD thesis, University of CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B.W., and Fulford, M. 1982: Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani. Great Britain i.2. Bath and the Rest of Wessex, LondonGoogle Scholar
Davis, A. 2006: Plant Remains from 20–30 Gresham Street, City of London EC2 (GHT00), unpub. MoLAS archive reportGoogle Scholar
Dunwoodie, L. 2004: Pre-Boudican Activity and Later Activity on the Site of the Forum: Excavations at 168 Fenchurch Street, City of London, MoLAS Studies Series 13, LondonGoogle Scholar
Edwards, C. (trans.) 2000: Suetonius: Lives of the Caesars, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Espérandieu, E. 1911: Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule Romaine IV, ParisGoogle Scholar
Espérandieu, E., and Rolland, H. 1959: Bronzes antiques de la Seine Maritime, Gallia suppl. 13, ParisGoogle Scholar
Evers, C. 1994: Les portraits d'Hadrien. Typologie et ateliers, BrusselsGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2002: ‘Roman Britain in 2001. 7. Greater London’, Britannia 33, 326–40Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2004: ‘Roman Britain in 2003. 7. Greater London’, Britannia 35, 296–303Google Scholar
Hedrick, C.W. 2000: History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity, Austin, TexasGoogle Scholar
Huskinson, J. 1994: Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani. Great Britain. I fasc. 8. Roman Sculpture from Eastern England, LondonGoogle Scholar
Killock, D., and Brown, G. 2004: ‘Tabard Square’, Current Archaeology No. 192, 540–7Google Scholar
Lawson, A. 1986: ‘A fragment of life-size bronze equine statuary from Ashill, Norfolk’, Britannia 17, 333–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lins, P.A., and Oddy, W.A. 1975: ‘The origins of mercury gilding’, Journal of Archaeological Science 2(4), 365–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsden, P. 1987: The Roman Forum Site in London. Discoveries before 1985, LondonGoogle Scholar
Mattingly, H. (trans.) 1970: Tacitus: the Agricola and the Germania (revised by S.A. Handford), LondonGoogle Scholar
Mattusch, C.C., Brauer, A., and Knudsen, S.E. 2002: From the Parts to the Whole. Vol. 2. Acta of the 13th International Bronze Congress held at Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 28–June 1,1996 (Portsmouth, R.I)Google Scholar
Merrifeld, R. 1977: ‘Art and religion in Roman London: an inquest on the sculptures of Londinium’, in Munby and Henig 1977, 375–406Google Scholar
Merrifeld, R. 1987: The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, LondonGoogle Scholar
Munby, J., and Henig, M. 1977: Roman Life and Art in Britain. A Celebration of the Eightieth Birthday of Jocelyn Toynbee, BAR Brit. ser. 41, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Oddy, W.A. 1982: ‘Gold in Antiquity: aspects of gilding and of assaying’ (The Chester Beatty Lecture), Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, October 1982, 1–2Google Scholar
Oddy, W.A. 2002: ‘The technology and conservation of two fragments of life-size gilt bronze Roman statuary’, in Mattusch et al. 2002, 98–103Google Scholar
RCHM 1928: Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London. III Roman LondonGoogle Scholar
RIB: Collingwood, R.G. and Wright, R.P., The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. I Inscriptions on Stone, Oxford (1965)Google Scholar
Russell, M. 2006: Roman Sussex, StroudGoogle Scholar
Salway, P. 1981 Roman Britain, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Scaife, R. 2006: Blossoms Inn (GHT00) Pollen Report, School of Geography, University of SouthamptonGoogle Scholar
Smith, C.R. 1859: Illustrations of Roman London, LondonGoogle Scholar
Smith, D. 2006: The Insect Remains from 20–30 Gresham Street (Blossom's Inn) City of London EC2 (GHT00), University of Birmingham Environmental Archaeology Services Report No. 136Google Scholar
Stewart, P. 2003: Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Varner, E. 2004: Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture, LeidenCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walters, H.B. 1899: Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman and Etruscan in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, LondonGoogle Scholar
Walters, H.B. 1915: Select Bronzes, Greek, Roman and Etruscan in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum, LondonGoogle Scholar
Watson, B. et al. in prep.: Wells and Water: Roman and Later Excavations at 20–30 Gresham Street and Blossom's Inn, City of London EC2, MoLAS monograph, LondonGoogle Scholar
Webster, J. 1995: ‘Figural bronzes’, in W.H. Manning, J. Price and J. Webster, Report on the Excavations at Usk 1965–1976: The Roman Small Finds, Cardiff, 46–54Google Scholar
Wedlake, W.J. 1958: Excavations at Camerton Somerset, CamertonGoogle Scholar