Horsegear pendant

[Marcus Mummius]

Salvete,

I'm conserving several objects from an excavation in Belgium (Tongeren). Among the finds are a couple of cupric alloy pendants, probably belonging to a horse harness.

Here you can see an X-ray picture of the pendant. It's a cupric alloy, silvered on the front side and it has engraved decoration, inlaid with niello. All of this became apperent while removing the corrosion, because it was covered in a very thick crust.

As you can see the lower part of the pendant is missing. What shape did it have originaly? Does someone perhaps have a drawing of one like this one but complete?



Thanks for any input!

Vale,
Jef

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Can you post a picture of the object, or is very corroded? An graphic scale can help, too.. :wink:

[Marcus Mummius]

Can you post a picture of the object, or is very corroded? An graphic scale can help, too.. :wink:

Hi Cezar, thanks for your answer.

It was very corroded, yes. It was covered in a very thick layer of mineralised straw. I removed a lot of the corrosion and thus discovered the silvering and niello inlay. I haven't got the pictures (all with scale :wink: ) withme at the moment, but I will post some.

The roman artifacts website seems to be down

Kind regards,
Jef

[hansvl]

Hi Jef,

You should really have a look at this article:
Bishop, M.C. 1988: 'Cavalry equipment of the Roman army in the first century A.D.', in Coulston 1988a, 67-195

Coulston, J.C. (ed.) 1988a: Military Equipment and the Identity of Roman Soldiers. Proceedings of the Fourth Roman Military Equipment Conference, BAR International Series 394, Oxford

I'm sure you will find a comparison.

Greets

Hans

[Marcus Mummius]

I found out the correct link is: http://www.roman-artifacts.com/

[Ceasar Augustus]

Quite an interesting site.

[markusaurelius]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the site. I couldn't find a similar example there for you.

Jef, see the attached picture from Mike Bishops book as quoted by Hans.

It will give you an idea of how it may have looked.

[Ceasar Augustus]

Where'd you get the diagram?

[jvrjenivs]

Where'd you get the diagram?

Jef, see the attached picture from Mike Bishops book as quoted by Hans.

You should really have a look at this article:
Bishop, M.C. 1988: 'Cavalry equipment of the Roman army in the first century A.D.', in Coulston 1988a, 67-195

Coulston, J.C. (ed.) 1988a: Military Equipment and the Identity of Roman Soldiers. Proceedings of the Fourth Roman Military Equipment Conference, BAR International Series 394, Oxford

[Ceasar Augustus]

Ah thanks.

[mcbishop]

Where'd you get the diagram?

Jef, see the attached picture from Mike Bishops book as quoted by Hans.

You should really have a look at this article:
Bishop, M.C. 1988: 'Cavalry equipment of the Roman army in the first century A.D.', in Coulston 1988a, 67-195

Coulston, J.C. (ed.) 1988a: Military Equipment and the Identity of Roman Soldiers. Proceedings of the Fourth Roman Military Equipment Conference, BAR International Series 394, Oxford

Just out of interest, does anybody have a scan of the entire article? I have just moved and given away my best flatbed scanner to a deserving cause. I have been meaning to put this online for some time now, but would prefer to do it as a searchable PDF rather than just a bitmap within a PDF wrapper, so if anybody has one and wants to get in contact I'll set about converting it over the next few weeks.

Mike Bishop

[Marcus Mummius]

Thanks guys.

I was wondering does anyone know of cupric alloy beltplates or horsegear pendants like this that had niello AND tinning, instead of niello and silvering?

Niello has a higher melting temperature than tin so the tin would melt off when the niello was applied. If the niello was applied first, wouldn't it be damaged/ covered by the tinning?

And if it's silvering, the silver would probably have been applied first (higher melting temperature than niello) but the niello would have to be sanded flush with the metal surface after application, and by this the silver layer would have been damaged...

Has anyone seen a metalografic analysis of a piece (beltplate, horsegear,...) that was both covered in silver/tin and had niello decoration?

Any thoughts on this?

Vale,
Jef

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

The secret is that in some pieces seems that silver have aplied not as a "liquid" coat. The silver covering it's like foil or a thin plate, but i can't say how they fix it to the bronze, probably by a combination of heat and beating/pressure.

[Marcus Mummius]

The secret is that in some pieces seems that silver have aplied not as a "liquid" coat. The silver covering it's like foil or a thin plate, but i can't say how they fix it to the bronze, probably by a combination of heat and beating/pressure.

Hi Cezar,

Well this was indeed often the case. Also mercury and silver could be made into a silvering paste that could be used without heat application apperently.

But still, if you apply leafing to the object you will cover the engraved decorative lines with the niello inlay I believe.

The silvering layer of this pendant is very thin, it seems too thin to be silverleaf...

[Marcus Mummius]

Here's a photo of the front of the pendant. You can see the silvering that remains in some places and the niello decration lines at the left side. Anyone knows what type of pendant this would have been? The scale is in centimeters.