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... Show moreEye 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. Show less
Disc brooches of the Roman Iron Age are very diverse in their style and execution throughout all of Europe. The diversity in the tarand cemetery areas of modern day Estonia and north Latvia is... Show moreDisc brooches of the Roman Iron Age are very diverse in their style and execution throughout all of Europe. The diversity in the tarand cemetery areas of modern day Estonia and north Latvia is also very high, with many unique traits being observable as well as some multidirectional influences. Regionality in the tarand cemetery areas is therefore studied through these diverse brooches, to see whether some motifs, subtypes or alloys were more preferred in some areas than in others. A typological and compositional approach is adopted to achieve this. Based on the distribution of certain groups of disc brooches, their surface treatment and direction of influences, two areas come to the fore – north-east Estonia and south-east Estonia together with north Latvia. The study shows how people of the tarand cemetery areas adopted foreign techniques and stylistic features in accordance with local preferences and used them in their local culture. Show less
