The Pietroasa treasure is a late fourth-century hoard of jewellery and gold plate; it is normally associated with the Visigoths, and is thought to have been buried at the time of the advance of the Huns into Europe. The surviving pieces of the treasure were shown in the splendid exhibition of ‘Treasures from Romania’ in the British Museum last year; the objects were briefly described in the exhibition catalogue and many were illustrated, but there were no details of the finding or significance of the hoard, and the visitor was left to speculate on the very battered state of many of the pieces. In fact, when found, the treasure comprised 22 pieces and, by all accounts, all were in excellent condition; the poor state of the twelve survivors is due to an unhappy chain of events.