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A Roman Christian Silver Treasure from Biddulph, Staffordshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

K. S. Painter
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Summary

In 1971 the British Museum bought a fourth-century silver spoon with Christian symbols. An undated document acquired with the spoon showed that it was the survivor of a hoard from Biddulph, Staffordshire. In 1973 notes made in January 1886, about the discovery of the spoon, were found in a notebook compiled by A. W. Franks. The newly acquired spoon proves to have been one of a hoard of four spoons found at Whitemore Farm, Biddulph. The find-place of the spoon suggests a possible direct link between Chester and Buxton, while its dating adds to the sparse testimony for late-Roman life in the north-west of the province. The style of the lettering may indicate that the spoon was made in the East Mediterranean, and the Christian symbolism adds to the stock of evidence about the cult in the western Roman Empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 62 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1975

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References

page 62 note 1 The spoon is now in the collections of the Department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities, registration no. P.1971, 5–1, 1, having been purchased from Mr. S. W. Smith of East Barnet, Hertfordshire. It was exhibited to the Society at a Ballot Meeting on 4th March 1971 and is noted in Antiq. Journ. li (1971), 323–4.Google Scholar A full account of the spoon was published in Studi di Antichita Cristiana (Vatican, 1973)Google Scholar; but that text was completed one-and-a-half years before the evidence for the exact findspot came to light.

page 62 note 2 The report was kindly supplied by Mr. H. Barker, Principal Scientific Officer in the British Museum Research Laboratory. Thanks for the X-ray fluorescence analysis are gratefully offered to Dr. H. McKerell, of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, whose equipment was in use in the British Museum Laboratory at the time the spoon was being examined.

page 63 note 1 The watermark was kindly read and commented on by our Fellow, Mr. H. M. Nixon, Deputy Keeper in charge of the Antiquarian Division of the British Library.

page 63 note 2 The composition of the paper was kindly determined by Mr. A. D. Baynes-Cope, Principal Scientific Officer in the Research Laboratory, who also supplied the information about the first production of paper made from chemically treated wood-pulp.

page 63 note 3 The north wing of the ground floor was occupied by the Department of Printed Books. The ‘second North Gallery’ was on the upper floor. See Edwards, Edward, Lives of the Founders of the British Museum with Notices of its Chief Augmentors and other Benefactors, 1570–1870 (London, 1870), pp. 720–62Google Scholar, with plans. For the date of the removal of the natural history collections from Bloomsbury see Esdaile, Arundell, The British Museum Library (London, 1946), p. 121.Google Scholar For the date of the completion of the arrangement of the Early Christian Collections see Return to an Order of the Honourable House of Commons, dated 6 April 1984: –-for Account ‘of the Income and Expenditure of the British Museum (Special Trust Funds) for the year ending the 31st day of March 1894; and, Return of the Number of Persons admitted to visit the Museum and the British Museum (Natural History) in each yearfrom 1883 to 1893, bothyears inclusive; together with a Statement of the Progress made in the Arrangement and Description of the Collections, and an Account of the Objects added to them in the year 1893.’ Treasury Chambers, 13th August 1894. John T. Hibbert (Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 14th August 1894), p. 71.

page 63 note 4 Dalton, O. M., Catalogue of Early Christian Antiquities and Objects from the Christian East in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography of the British Museum (London, 1901).Google Scholar Work began on the Catalogue in 1899.

page 63 note 5 The registration number of the copy is 1936, 12–8, I. It is in the collections of the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities. The objects found and registered at the same time are nine more Roman silver spoons. All were unnumbered and therefore without known histories. The weight of 1936, 12–8, 1 is 26·7 g.

page 64 note 1 The notebook, in the Archive Cupboard of what is now the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, is labelled on its spine, ‘Roman and Saxon. 36.’

page 64 note 2 For this section see particularly Thompson, F. H., ‘Archaeology of the Congleton Area’, in Stephens, W. B. (ed.), History of Congleton (Manchester University Press, 1970), pp. 1–17Google Scholar; Thompson, F. H., Roman Cheshire (Cheshire Community Council, Chester, 1965)Google Scholar; and also Jones, G. B. D., ‘The Romans in the North-West’, in Northern History iii (1968), 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 65 note 1 For Mediolanum see Richmond, I. A. and Crawford, O. G. S., ‘The British Section of the Ravenna Cosmography’, in Archaeologia, xciii (1949), 8 and 40Google Scholar; Jones, G. D. B., in Northern History, iii (1968), 4–6Google Scholar; and Jones, G. D. B. and Webster, P. V., ‘Mediolanum: Excavations at Whitchurch, 1965–6’, in Arch, Journ. CXXV (1968), 193Google Scholar.

page 66 note 1 Jones, G. D. B., Northern History, iii (1968), 3–4 and 26Google Scholar.

page 66 note 2 Thompson, F. H., Roman Cheshire, p. 108Google Scholar and pl. 47.

page 66 note 3 Coin-hoards: ibid., p. 106. For the late-Roman western seaboard, see Cunliffe, B. W., Fifth Report on the Excavations of the Roman Fort at Richborough, Kent (1968), pp. 267–8Google Scholar, and Frere, S. S., Britannia, A History of Roman Britain (1967), pp. 335 ff., especially p. 344 on Lancaster, Chester, and the destruction of the forum at WroxeterGoogle Scholar.

page 67 note 1 Late Roman spoons: Strong, D. E., Greek and Roman Gold and Silver Plate (1966), pp. 204–6Google Scholar. Kaiseraugst: Laur-Belart, R., Der spätrömische Silberschatz von Kaiseraugst, Aargau (Augst, 1963) pp. 31–2Google Scholar; Coleraine: Mattingly, H., Pearce, J. W. E., and Kendrick, T. D., ‘The Coleraine Hoard’, in Antiquity, xi (1937), 37–45Google Scholar; Canterbury: Painter, K. S., ‘A Roman Silver Treasure from Canterbury’, in J.B.A.A. xxviii (1965), 1–15Google Scholar; Dorchester: Dalton, O. M., ‘Roman Spoons from Dorchester’, in Antiq. Journ. ii (1922), 89–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mattingly, H., ‘Find of Siliquae at Dorchester, Dorset’, in Num. Chron ii (1922), 134–9Google Scholar; Horwood: Waugh, Helen, ‘The Hoard of Roman Silver from Great Horwood, Buckinghamshire’, in Antiq. Journ. xlvi (1966), 60–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mildenhall: Brailsford, J. W., The Mildenhall Treasure (1955)Google Scholar, especially pl. 8.

page 67 note 2 Canoscio treasure: Givagnoli, D. E., ‘Una collezione di vasi eucaristici scoperti a Canoscio’, in Rivista di Archaeologia Cristiana, xii (1935), 313–28.Google Scholar The spoon is illustrated in fig. 7, p. 325, and is decorated in the bowl with a punched Chi-Rho and alpha and omega.

page 67 note 3 Carthage: Dalton, O. M., Catalogue of Early Christian Antiquities and Objectsfrom the Christian East (British Museum, 1901), p. 81Google Scholar, no. 375. Hof Iben: Reinach, , Revue des Études Juives, xiii (1886), 220Google Scholar; Kraus, F. X., Die altchristlichen Inschriften der Rheinlande (Freiburg i. B., 1890), p. 24Google Scholar, no. 41; Cabrol, F. and Leclerq, H., Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, iii (1914), 3175–6Google Scholar, s.v. ‘cuiller’; Kempf, Th. and Reusche, W. (edd.), Frühchristliche Zeugnisse im Einzugsgebiet von Rhein und Mosel(Trier, 1965), p. 122Google Scholar, no. 111. Esquiline Treasure: Dalton, , op. cit., no. 304.Google Scholar Coffin of Paulinus: Kempf, and Reusch, , op. cit., no. 53.Google Scholar Technique of inscription: it is of course possible that the Biddulph spoon was also inscribed in the firs instance with short strokes and that they were afterwards obscured by a point which left a single line.

page 68 note 1 Harden, D. B., ‘Late Roman Wheel-Inscribed Glasses with Double-Line Letters’, in Kölner Jahrbuch, ix (1967/1968), 43–55.Google Scholar This builds on his earlier paper, ‘The Highdown Hill Glass Goblet with Greek Inscription’, in Sussex Arch. Coll. xcvii (1959), 3–20.Google Scholar Dr. Harden has kindly informed me that other examples have come to his knowledge since he published his paper of 1967/8, but that the new information is in no way inconsistent with his previous conclusions.

page 68 note 2 The western piece is from Cologne and is probably of local manufacture: see Harden, , op. cit.Google Scholar

page 68 note 3 For a full and comprehensive study of late-Roman and Merovingian silver spoons see Milojčić, Vladimir, ‘Zu den spätkaiserzeitlichen und merowingischen Silberlöffeln’, in B.R.G.K. xlix (1968), 111–33Google Scholar.

page 68 note 4 Cabrol, F. and Leclerq, H., Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, s.v. ‘agape’Google Scholar.

page 69 note 1 For a review of some of the differences in communion between, for example, the Gallic and the Roman church see , Milojčić, op. cit., pp. 112–13, 129–33Google Scholar.

page 69 note 2 I thank for invaluable help and advice my friends and colleagues H. Barker, A. D. Baynes-Cope, J. W. Brailsford, R. M. Camber, P. C. Compton, Mrs. F. I. Cotton, D. B. Harden, H. M. Nixon, F. H. Thompson, Miss S. Tong, and Mrs. C. Weber.