Detecting Roman Britain: the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the study of provincial material culture

Authors

  • John PEARCE King’s College London (UK)
  • Sally WORRELL University College London (UK)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21071/aac.v0i25-26.6413

Keywords:

Roman Britain, metal-detecting, iconography, brooch, figurine, enamel, vessel, knife-handle, hunting, erotica.

Abstract

This article examines the significance of a major new source of archaeological data from Roman Britannia, the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), a department within the British Museum responsible for documenting archaeological objects found in England and Wales by members of the public, mainly metal detectorists. Of the more than one million objects now recorded, more than a quarter are Roman in date, documented mainly from what were, in the Roman-period, rural landscapes in eastern England. After outlining their broad character and distribution the article uses two case studies to explore the contribution of this new dataset to understanding rural Britannia, one on brooch types in relation to the study of provincial costume, the other on the new iconographic evidence for the visual culture of the province.

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Published

2016-12-01

How to Cite

PEARCE, J., & WORRELL, S. (2016). Detecting Roman Britain: the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the study of provincial material culture. Anales De Arquelogía Cordobesa, (25-26), 19–48. https://doi.org/10.21071/aac.v0i25-26.6413

Issue

Section

ARTICLES