Roman Lead Weight Group

Comprising a large quantity of pottery and red-ware sherds from large and small vessels, including an amphora neck and part of a handle. 586 grams total, 7-74 mm



Found near Vechten, Netherlands. Netherlands private collection. Acquired from a private collector in 2009. Property of a Nottinghamshire gentleman. Accompanied by a typed information sheet.

Fectio, modern Vechten, was a fort in the limes, the frontier zone of the Roman Empire, situated at the site of the bifurcation of the rovers Rhine and Vecht. Numismatic evidence suggests that it was founded by the Roman general Tiberius (the future emperor) during the 4/5th campaigns. It probably served as a military base during punitive raids. Around the middle of the 2nd century AD, the wood and earth fort was replaced by a stone fortification and occupied by the Ala I Thracum, who had previously been stationed in Britain. At the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 3rd century, the silting up of the Rhine’s arm on which Fectio lays had progressed to such an extent that access from the river was no longer possible. In the more than two and a half centuries of its existence, the camp was destroyed and rebuilt several times until the fort site was finally abandoned - as evidenced by archaeological traces of fire after a final destruction in 270/275 A.D.

Restrung group of annular, oblate and tubular glass and other beads with discoid glass centrepiece. 16 grams, 67 cm long



Acquired 1980-2015. Ex Abelita family collection.

With a rounded body decorated with a lozenge 'net' motif, broad flared neck, kick-up to base; extensive iridescence, repaired. 49 grams, 11 cm high



Acquired early 1990s. Ex private American collection; thence by descent. Private collection since 1998.