FORVM`s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board
Antiquities Discussion Forums => Other Metal Antiquities => Topic started by: Joe Sermarini on November 14, 2019, 09:23:04 am
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(https://www.forumancientcoins.com/Coins2/20847q00.jpg)
Roman bronze plate with loop at center 13.5 cm diameter.
What would have been the purpose of the plate with a loop at the center? I thought it might be a scale pan but those typically are connected at three points on the edge. Any ideas?
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My first thoughts are the same as yours.
Never seen that design but it looks like that.
Another possibility is something attached to fabric, like a giant button but as a decoration. Wouldn't be Roman in that case but could be earlier late bronze age or iron age....
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Polished metal was sometimes used as a mirror. It's a bit hard to imagine from the photo, but could that have been a suspended mirror?
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I think it is too big to have been a button and not flat enough to be a mirror.
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I don't mean a button for fastening clothes, I mean a metallic decoration sewn on clothes but in the same manner as a button.
We know that both bronze age, and later nomadic steppe peoples, often had many metal ornaments seen on their clothes. There are Scythian grave with hundreds of small metal bits that were sewn on clothing. The so-called scale armor bits that are tear-drop shaped, convex and have a single hole in the middle were actually decorations sewn onto clothing.
Maybe something like that.
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