INSULAR ORNAMENTAL METALWORK AD 300 – 500: ’MILITARY STYLE’ INSPIRED ART IN IRELAND AND BRITAIN

Fiona Gavin

This research concerns the first dedicated examination, analysis and contextualisation of a corpus of Insular metalwork inspired by late Roman ’Military Style’ art. ’Military Style’ art refers to principally chip-carved ( kerbschnitt) ornamentation, a brilliantly faceted ’flashy’ form of surface decoration  found on both military garniture and a range of personal ornaments along the borders of the provincial Roman north-west and its neighbouring territories during the mid-fourth century AD. This distinctively abstract ornamental style encompasses a range of motifs including triangles, running scrolls and spirals, rosettes, peltas, palmettes, six-pointed interlaced stars, stepped patterns, swastikas and marigolds.  These were typically defined within beaded borders and settings creating ’grids of ornamentation’ on the decorated surface.  Further embellishment was often provided by means of niello inlay or gilding.

Elements of this distinctive provincial Roman material culture tradition also forms an integral part of the elite Insular artistic repertory c. 300 – 500 AD.  Native types specifically dress-fasteners such as proto-hand pins, hand-pins, projecting disc-headed pins, select zoomorphic penannular brooches and other prestige ornamental pieces are all ornamented in an Insular rendition of this style. These highly accomplished and exquisitely crafted silver, silver-gilt, and bronze artefacts feature a shared grammar of evolved Classical, vegetal and geometric motifs executed in delicate fine-line ornament contained within decorative beaded borders.

This research will generate the first catalogue of this corpus in Ireland and Britain and will involve both traditional archaeological and art-historical methodologies and the study of this art as a cultural signifier. It will serve to establish the profile of an important though virtually undocumented horizon of early Insular art, whose significance from the points of view of art-history and social history is readily apparent.  This is particularly the caseas this art served as the cultural identifier of a powerful and wealthy indigenous elite.  They proclaimed their mimesis of the Roman world through the lavish display of silver and the mobilisation of Classical motifs in a common expression of elite status with their contemporaries across the Provincial Roman West.  This research will provide new insights into topics such as social status, cultural identity and political and economic relations between Ireland, Britain and the wider late Roman Provincial West during a formative though opaque period of Insular history.

Traditionally, this metalwork was considered (if at all) part of a rare, archetypically Irish art expression that appeared ’fully formed’ during the sixth and seventh centuries AD. Furthermore, association with the Norrie's Law hoard has exacerbated the situation by creating chronological uncertainties and ill-founded parallels with Pictish material. However, the recognition of this Insular art horizon as part of the ’Military Style’ oeuvre  allows it to be viewed in its correct socio-cultural and chronological setting, as part of a diverse range of exquisitely crafted, high status, ornamental metalwork whose distinctive style physically embodied the zeitgeist of Late Antiquity across the Provincial Roman West.

This research is funded by the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies Fellowship, National University of Ireland, Galway.

E-mail fiona.gavingmail.com

• Disclaimer
• Privacy
• Copyright
• Accessibility