Large Roman Bronze Lion-Headed Iron Key

Comprising plano-convex, discoid and other types in bone and glass. 20 grams total, 17-23 mm



Found on the Thames foreshore, UK. Acquired from Red House Antiques, York, 2009. Ian Wilkinson collection, Nottinghamshire, UK.

A rectangular block with stamped mark 'LEGT I ITAL' (Legio I Italica) for 1st Legion 'Italic'; with collector's label 'Roman brick made by the Ist Italica Legion at Olpia Oescus on the lower Danube, one of Trajan's strategic bases prior to the invasion of Dacia in 106 AD. LEG I ITAL' 4.35 kg, 19 cm



From the collection of a late East Anglian teacher and antiquarian who retired to the Isle of Wight in Hampshire, UK. He amassed a large collection of objects between the 1960s-1980s. Accompanied by a previous catalogue identification card.

The Legio I Italica ("of Italy") was a Roman legion formed by Nero on September 20, 66 or 67 AD and active until the 5th century AD. Its emblems were the boar and sometimes the bull. There are many sources which name army officials employed in supervision of the construction and reconstruction of temples, baths, city walls, towers and gates. CIL VIII 2728, for example, is a letter by evocatus Augusti who was sent to solve engineering problems on a badly surveyed aqueduct at Saldae in the province of Numidia. Pliny (Epistulae X 17b, 39, 41, 61) repeatedly requested an army architect to be sent from Lower Moesia to help inspect some Bithynian building projects. Therefore it is not strange that tiles marked as belonging to a legion should be found all over the provinces.

Rectangular plate with reserved running hound in a two-cell panel, spring and catch to reverse; complete with pin. 4.6 grams, 27 mm



Found Wiltshire, UK, before 1974.