Some Mirrors from Roman Canterbury

SOME MIRRORS FROM ROMAN CANTERBURY G. LLOYD-MORGAN B.A., Ph.D., F.S.A. Some years ago th.e present writer was asked to comment on a Roman mirror from Great Mongeham near Deal. It was afterwards published with an appendix listing other finds from Kent. 1 This list was supplemented by a further note, intended to place these discoveries within a wider context.2 At that time only one certainly identified mirror from Canterbury, found during excavations at St. Augustine's Abbey in 1976, had been studied in detail. Earlier records, however, had been published by John Brent over a century before, which suggested finds of some quality, if not quantity. Fortunately, two items representing a small proportion of the original number of mirrors have now been relocated in the Royal Museum and Art Gallery, Canterbury. The first piece is a handle which appears to have become detached from the mirror disc in antiquity. It is the most commonly found type with a baluster shaped grip,3 and is approximately 10 cm. long. The upper section, with a stylised leaf shape, would have been soldered on to the non-reflecting side of the mirror disc. The short arms to either side would have given further support. Earlier examples in silver from the wealthy cities of Campania often had more decorative detail. The support was in the shape of a willow or ivy leaf, and the side arms were engraved to give the impression of two opposed birds' 1 J. Gaunt and Keith Parfitt, 'A Roman Mirror from Great Mongeham, near Deal' KAR, 57 (Autumn 1979), 164-7. 2 G. Lloyd-Morgan, 'Roman Mirrors from Kent: A Brief Survey' KAR, 59 (Spring 1980), 206-8. 3 G. Lloyd-Morgan, Descriptions of the Collections in the Rijksmuseum G.M.Kam at Nijmegen: no. IX The Mirrors (Nijmegen 1981). Group Na, pp. 64-5 for twelve handles of the same type. For a mirror complete with its handle cf. Pl. lla and b on p. 55; also J. Musty and A. Rogerson with G. Lloyd-Morgan 'A Mirror from the Romano-British Cemetery at Whitchurch, Salop,' Antiq. Journ., !xiii (1973), 278-81, Pl. LVb. 231 G. LLOYD-MORGAN Fig. 1. Roman Mirror Handle, no. 2386. (Scale: ½). heads with long bills, enclosing nearly a quarter of the circumference of the mirror disc.• Most of the handles found in Britain and other provinces are of bronze, usually with a percentage of lead which would have facilitated casting. When found intact with their mirror discs they can usually be dated to the first century A.D., though a number may have remained in circulation as heirlooms for some time before eventually being buried with the owner, or broken in a domestic accident. 5 The Canterbury handle, no. 2386, does not have a recorded find spot, though John Brent exhibited a mirror handle to the Society of Antiquaries on February 16th, 1865, which had been found in a stone coffin during the previous autumn when drainage work was being 4 J. Ward Perkins and Amanda Claridge, Pompeii A.D.79. Catalogue of the Exhibition held in London Nov. 1976--Feb. 1977, no. 377 with colour plate, from the Boscoreale Treasure; G. Lloyd-Morgan 'The Antecedents and Development of the Roman Hand Mirror' Papers in Italian Archaeology I, (Eds.) H. McK. Blake, T.W. Potter and D.B. Whitehouse, BAR suppl. series, no. 41 (1978), 227-35, especially 227, 230. 5 Sonja Petru, Emonske Nekropole, Catalogi et Monographiae cura Musei Nationalis Labacensis editi no. 7 (Ljubljana 1972) Grave no. 48 (1135), Taf. VI, no. 2, p. 166, with coin of Hadrian, Grave 489, Taf. XXXII, no. 20, p. 156, Grave no. 764, Taf. XLIX, no. 20, p. 159, Grave no. 914, Taf. LXVI, no. 21, p. 162 with a coin of Domitian: Gerd Biegel 'Romische Brandgraber aus Hufingen, Schwarzwald-baarKreis' in Neue Ausgrabungen, Archaologische Denkmalpflege im Regierungsbezirk, Freiburg (Freiburg Im Breisgau 1981), 45-8, with plate on cover, cremation grave no. 7 in Romerstrasse, dated to the late first century A.D. 232 MIRRORS FROM ROMAN CANTERBURY undertaken near the site of St. Edmund's Church. 6 Elsewhere he noted finds of other mirror handles from Castle Street, but without further detail.' No handles of this type, or with a loop-shaped grip, have yet turned up during recent organised excavations. However, a number of examples of incomplete mirror discs which would have had a handle of this type have been recognised. These include the piece from St. Augustine's Abbey in 1976 noted above, and two fragments from excavations on the Cakebread Robey site. One of these latter, no. 328 from the 1976 excavations, came from a first-century context. The other, and two pieces from the Marlowe I site in 1978, were residual. Another badly corroded fragment from St. Gabriel's Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral 1980, may also have been part of a similar mirror disc. The second item from the Museum collection is part of a mirror disc of a different type. In this case, the handle would have been somewhat strap-like in appearance and would have been soldered across the back of the disc rather than at one point on the circumference. Like the hand mirrors, the solder point is a weak spot, and few examples have survived intact. The reflecting side is plain and slightly convexed, so as to give an image of most of the face within the small diameter of about 9.3 cm. The back is also undecorated, but has a bevelled edge. There is a low rim, roughly convex in cross-section, 0.6 cm. wide, cut off by a deeply incised concentric circle from the main field of the disc. Some variants of this type of mirror have engraved geometric or dot-and-circle patterns to ornament this inner area. A number of the plain examples have been found on sites in this country, including a much damaged piece from excavations in the Roman cemetery at Westgate Court Farm, Canterbury, during the summer of 1982. One of the earliest recorded pieces comes from the Roman cemetery in the Infirmary Fields, Chester, but survives as a few fragments only.8 The best preserved mirror, its handle still in situ, was found in a cremation grave in Verulamium during Dr. Stead's 6 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, second series, iii (1864-5), 55, no. 3. Brent, the Honorary Curator at the Canterbury Museum (as it was then called), was an active member of the Society of Antiquaries of London for many years. He was elected on 7th April, 1853, and in 1867 became the local Secretary for Kent. His death is recorded in the Proceedings, second series, ix (1881-1883), 304. 7 John Brent Canterbury in Olden Time (London 1879, second edition), 49. 8 R. Newstead 'The Roman Cemetery in the Infirmary Fields, Chester, part 2' Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, viii (1921), 49-60 cf. Grave 30, pp. 50--1; G. Lloyd-Morgan 'Mirrors in Roman Chester', Journ. Chester Arch. Soc., Ix (1977), 49-55 cf. no. 7, pp. 52, 49. 233 G. LLOYD-MORGAN Fig. 2. Roman Mirror Disc - rear view showing solder points of handle now lost. (Scale: ½). excavations,° with another piece represented by a fragment from Professor Frere's excavations there in 1956. A much smaller fragment with only part of one dot-and-circle pattern remaining of the original decoration, was reported from excavations on the Marlowe Theatre site, Canterbury, in the summer of 1982. Further north, two mirrors, one decorated, were found in the Roman site at Corbridge just south of Hadrian's Wall,'0 and a plain damaged piece was found in 1977 in the fort at Camelon, Stirlingshire, just north of the Antonine Wall." It came from a context roughly dated between A.D. 140 to the 160s and is one of the earliest dated mirrors of the type, which appears to remain in circulation into the third century. 12 About a hundred examples have been found in the north-western provinces of the Empire, with a scatter of finds in Hungary, Yugoslavia and North Africa. The greatest proportion, however, some 47 per cent have been found in the province of Lower Germany, with 23 per cent of 9 Ian Stead, 'Verulamium 1966-8', Antiquity, xliii (1969), 45-52, cf. p. 46; G. Lloyd-Morgan 'Mirrors in Roman Britain' Roman Life and Art in Britain, (Eds.) J. Munby and M. Henig, BAR 41 (1977), 231-52, cf. p. 237 and note 27, also listed on p. 247. 10 G. Lloyd-Morgan 'Two Mirrors from Corbridge', Britannia, viii (1977), 335-8, Pl. XVIII. 11 The writer wishes to thank Dr. Valerie Maxfield for making the mirror, find no. CAM 77.40, available for study prior to publication. 12 G. Lloyd-Morgan 'Roman Mirrors and the Thi.rd Century' The Roman West and the Third Century. Contributions from History and Archaeology, (Eds.) A. King and M. Henig, BAR International Series no. 109 (1981), 145-57, cf. pp. 151-2. 234 MIRRORS FROM ROMAN CANTERBURY the total finds coming from Nijmegen and district. '3 Although the rediscovered Canterbury mirror might well be the same as the one which was described by John Brent as 'a portion of a mirror from Castle Street' ,7 it cannot be conclusively proven. However, its relationship to other mirrors of the same type in Britain, and the evidence of recent finds of the mirrors in Canterbury help to fill out the pattern of trade from the Low Countries into the south-east and thence to the military outposts in the north and west." The rediscovery of the two mirrors among the old collections in the Museum at Canterbury, with the finds from recent excavations, gives a new minimum total of twenty-three items from the city, with probably several more handles from Castle Street which have gone astray since John Brent's time. Further fragments will probably turn up during future excavations. Although it seems unlikely that the total number from Canterbury will exceed Colchester, which has produced well over forty specimens, it comes a good second amongst all the sites in Britain at the time of writing. It is unfortunate that some of the fragments are too small for close identification, but overall the Canterbury mirrors represent the types that were most popular during the first and second to third centuries A.D., reflecting the relative wealth of the local population and helping to shed light on the trade in these luxury objects. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writer wishes to thank Mr K.G.H. Reedie, Curator of the Royal Museum and Art Gallery, Canterbury, for all his help in making the mirrors available for study and publication, and the members of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust for giving access to their material with details of the provenance and dating. There are many other colleagues in Britain who have helped, directly and indirectly, in the '3 G. Lloyd-Morgan 'Some Bronze Mirrors in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum G.M. Kam, Nijmegen' Actes des Illes. Journees internationales consacrees a l'Etude des Bronzes remains, Brussels/Mariemont 27-29 May 1974, publ. in Bull. des Musees Royau.x d'Art et d'Histoire, 46 (1974, pub!. 1977) 43-51; also Lloyd-Morgan The Mirrors (Nijmegen 1981) op. cit., note 3, 95-103. " A fragment of a mirror decorated with dot-and-circle patterns has been located amongst the finds from South Shields, but has not been inspected by the writer. Miss Allason-Jones of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne kindly drew it to her attention (pers. comm. 30 June, 1981). A second fragmentary piece with similar decoration was discovered among the unpublished small finds from the Bushe-Fox excavations at Wroxeter, and has been conserved in the laboratories of the Dept. of the Environment, Lab. no. 76,0704. 235 G. LLOYD-MORGAN search for Roman mirrors without which this note could not have been written. But it is to all those members of my family, past and present, and friends who have made Canterbury such a pleasure to visit, that this is affectionately dedicated. 236