Thursday, 30th October 2008 (553 views)

A Roman gold brooch has been discovered in a field in a small Norfolk village, archaeologists have confirmed.

Norfolk Museum and Archaeology Service (NMAS) has reported that the rare gold brooch was found at Gunthorpe by a metal detector.

Dating from the third or fourth century AD, the piece was unearthed by Paul Buckenham using a metal detector on land owned by Stephen Mitchell and his family.

NMAS is now looking to acquire the crossbow brooch, which is important for developing an understanding of the late Roman period in the region.

Dr Andrew Rogerson, head of the organisation's finds identification and recording service, told the Eastern Daily Press: "It is very rare, extremely unusual and probably very significant. Gold brooches of this type are never common and this is certainly the first to be recorded in Norfolk."

Gold brooches would have belonged to high status individuals during the late Roman period and it may have belonged to a man or a woman.

An archaeologist from Cardiff University recently found a series of tiny 4,000-year-old studs used to decorate the handle of a Bronze Age dagger buried near to Stonehenge and they are being placed on display at a museum in Devizes.

 

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