: The Romans

This article contains photos of human skeletal fragments.

The Biggest

We have some real whoppers in our collections - including a full-size Cardiff Tram and a sea rescue helicopter - but the biggest item in our collection is actually Oakdale Workmen's Institute.

Built in 1917, the Institute features a billiard room, dance hall and library - and is nowadays found in St Fagans National Museum of History.

Horace Watkins testing his monoplane in 1908

Many of the buildings in St Fagans are part of the national collection - meaning they have the same legal status as one of our masterpiece Monets or this coin hoard. The buildings are dismantled, moved, rebuilt - and cared for using traditional techniques, by the museum's legendary Historic Buildings Unit.
 

The Shiniest

People in Wales have been making, trading and wearing beautiful treasures from gold for thousands of years - like this Bronze Age hair ornament and this extremely blingy Medieval signet.

At around 4000 years old, this sun disc is one of the earliest and rarest examples of Welsh bling

One of the earliest examples of Welsh bling is this so-called 'sun disc', found near Cwmystwyth in Ceredigion.

Current research suggests that these 'sun discs' were part of ancient funeral practice, most likely sewn onto the clothes of the dead before their funerals. Only six have ever been found in the UK.
 

Honourable Mention: an Airplane made from a Dining Room Chair

Made from a dining room chair, piano wire and a 40 horsepower engine, the Robin Goch (Red Robin) was built in 1909 - and also features a fuel gauge made from an egg timer.

The Robin Goch (Red Robin) on display at the National Waterfront Museum

Its builder, Horace Watkins, was the son of a Cardiff printer - here he is pictured with an earlier, even more rickety version of his famous monoplane.
 

Horace Watkins testing his monoplane in 1908

Our collections are full of stories which reflect Wales' unique character and history. The Robin Goch is one of the treasures of the collection, and is an example of Welsh ingenuity at its best.

This detailed miniature statue of a dog is no more than 4 to 5cms in height, and was probably once coated in tin or silver. Holes in the metal base plate suggest he was attached to a small plinth.

One of two miniature statues of dogs found at Llys Awel. His tongue is sticking out in the action of licking.

Man’s best friend, the dog has recently been making headlines again through his ability to save life by either sniffing out cancer or licking to help restore circulation to injured limbs. This association between people, dogs and good health is nothing new and was recognised back in antiquity.

Housed in the Archaeology collections are 2 small dog figurines, part of a group of objects found at Llys Awel, Conwy. There are also two copper alloy plaques. One is decorated with a dot-punched outline of a dog; the second is not so well preserved, the dotted outline is less clear and it could either be another dog or a name, possibly of a god. The site is believed to be a shrine dedicated to a healing god and the objects themselves date to the Roman period in Britain, sometime between the late first century AD and the end of the fourth century AD. The objects were probably left by people as gifts to the god hoping they would be granted good health and help to recover from an illness.

Why dogs?

Well, the Greek god of medicine, Asklepios (adopted by the Romans who knew him as Aesculapius), was frequently depicted with a dog as his animal companion. This association probably came about after people observed dogs healing themselves by licking. A major sanctuary to his cult was built in the fourth century BC at Epidaurus, in Greece. This place became one of the major centres for healing in the ancient world. One part of the healing treatment or ritual was to receive licks from a sacred dog kept at the sanctuary. The only known British equivalent of Epidaurus is the cult centre of the Romano-British god Nodens at Lydney in Gloucestershire. Here, 9 representations of dogs were found: like the dogs at Llys Awel these were probably left by visitors seeking cures for their ailments.

The dogs are made from copper alloy and are about 5cm tall. They are seated with tails between their legs and tongues sticking out, as if in the action of licking. The figures are incredibly detailed with eyes, ears, nose, paws and fur texture well defined. They were probably made by the lost wax process, so there was only one chance to get the metal casting right. One dog was cast as a single piece, but the other revealed a slightly more complicated construction.

Illustration of a votive plaque with added shading to highlight the outline of a dog.

Illustration of votive leaf plaque. Do the dotted lines in the lower half spell out the name of a long lost god or is it another dog?

Conservation

During conservation it became apparent the dog was cast in several sections, the head, body, tail and tongue. The individual pieces were then soldered together to create the whole figure. Grooves in the metal at the junction between the head and body support this idea and would have helped the solder grip and hold the two sections together. There is evidence to suggest the craftsman had problems casting the figure, the molten copper alloy failing to flow to all parts of the tiny mould. Repairs had to be made to the nose and the right front leg, the miscast material removed and then new sections recast and soldered in place. The replacement nose has gone, but we still have the replacement leg, which is not as well modelled as the original left leg.

The statue was probably given a coat of either tin or silver to hide the construction detail and enhance its appearance, which would have helped elevate our dog to a slightly higher pedigree. Unfortunately analysis of the surface was inconclusive; the coating, if one had existed, did not survive. Therefore we can only imagine its original appearance and wonder if the people who gave this little treasure to the god were ever granted their wish.

Late Roman Belt-buckle from Caerwent

The only other example known from Wales — from Pen y Corddyn hillfort, Conwy. Decorated with fish and a pair of peacocks facing a stylised tree.

Excavation at Caerwent in the early 20th-century

Re-excavating the Edwardian trenches at Caerwent

Archaeologists first excavated the forum-basilica at Caerwent in Monmouthshire early in the twentieth-century. When Museum staff returned to excavate the site again they found items that had previously been overlooked, including this late fourth-century copper alloy buckle and plate.

The buckle loop has a pair of dolphins' heads facing inward and a pair of horses' heads facing out. The sheet metal plate was originally fastened to a leather belt with two rivets at the end. It is decorated with a cable pattern border and three circular motifs with marigold-rosettes on a dotted background. The curving projections rising from these look like the heads and necks of birds, suggesting that the motifs could be peacocks.

Peacocks can be seen on the buckle plate from Pen y Corddyn hillfort, Conwy, the only other example of this type of buckle-plate known from Wales That example is decorated with fish and a pair of peacocks facing a stylised tree.

Immortal peacocks and a tree-of-life

Peacocks as a symbol of immortality (their flesh was said to be incorruptible), fish and trees-of-life can all be interpreted as Christian symbols. This has led some to connect these buckle-plates with Christianity, but they could simply be conventional decorative motifs.

Roman Military Belt

Buckle-plates like this have been seen as official issue military equipment. The 'military belt' was an important symbol of rank, although the style of belt was clearly adopted more widely. This example could be a more broadly official 'civil service' issue, rather than purely military. It seems likely, however, that their spread was wider, possibly as a sign of status among people who merely fancied that they were servants of the state. They have been found in a few female burials, which suggests they were worn by women.

The Caerwent belt-buckle should probably be regarded as no more than an item of dress that reveals the personal tastes of the owner. It does not directly reflect its owner's rank or even sex, although it may tell us a little about the wearer's aspirations to look like one of 'the Great and the Good' in society.

Roman arrowhead with three ribs from Dinorben, north Wales

Roman arrowhead with four ribs from Caerleon, south Wales

Replica arrowheads

jig used to form a four-vane arrowhead

The Romans used many different types of arrowheads. The most characteristic had a series of vanes: the early type had three vanes, but by the 3rd century examples with four vanes are found. One possible reason for this change is that the four-vane type was easier to produce.

In 2008 St Fagans National History Museum hosted the World Field Archery Championship, and the Museum held a number of small exhibitions on archery. A number of replica Roman arrowheads were produced especially for the Roman archery display, to show what Roman arrowheads looked like when new.

Careful conservation work on some of the Museum's Roman arrowheads revealed enough original surface detail to help us work out how the Romans had made them. The Museum's blacksmith at St Fagans was keen to produce the replicas in the same way, and he experimented until he could produce copies that closely matched the originals.

This experimental work revealed that the four-vane type was easier and quicker to make, as the vanes could be formed in a jig. The vanes on the three-vane type, being more spread out, had to be individually hammered into shape. While doing this one vane tended to get in the way of working on another. Was this why four-vane types started to be produced?

If this is true, why did the Romans start off with three-vane arrowheads? Roman archery equipment was based on that developed in the Near East. There, the original metal arrowheads had been cast in bronze. The three-vane form of these bronze arrowheads was simply copied when iron arrowheads started to be made.