Eyes to the North: a compositional analysis of copper-alloy eye brooches in the eastern Baltic, produced during the Roman Iron Age

Abstract

Eye brooches are the earliest form of brooch to enter the Eastern

Baltic region during the Roman Iron Age. Their form bears strong similarities to

those found much further south in Germania

and the northern Roman provinces, leading to the conclusion that they originally arrived as imports, perhaps by sea from an as yet undiscovered production centre in an area formerly known as East Prussia. In contrast, the eye brooches found within the Germanic areas, north of the Roman frontier, are thought to have originated as export goods produced within the Roman provinces, some distance from the areas in which they are found. Therefore we re-examine the debate surrounding local production versus foreign imports, through an innovative use of pXRF. The study compares compositional data of both imported and locally produced brooches against the current typological framework with the aim to better understand how, where and when they were made.