Details

LOT 0806

Roman Sheet Gold Phalera Covers with Pelta Shields

4TH-6TH CENTURY A.D.

2 3/8 in. (6.60 grams total, 61-62 mm).

Comprising a pair of discoid appliqués with beaded rim and high-relief pelta (military shield) motif, one with the pelta surmounted by a kantharos with a laurel wreath above, the other with vegetal volutes. [2, No Reserve]

Provenance

Acquired in the early 1990s.
From the collection of a London antiquarian.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Literature

Cf. Sannazzaro, M., Giostra, C., Petala Aurea, Gold-Sheet-work of Byzantine and Lombard Origin from the Rovati Collection, Truccazzano, 2014, nos.8-9-10, for circular gold sheets with similar decorations; D’Amato, R., Negin, A., Decorated Roman Armour, from the Age of the Kings to the death of Justinian the Great, London, 2017.

Footnotes

The subject represented on these two appliqués is a crescentic military shield, the so-called pelta, associated in the late Roman iconography with the Amazon female warriors. Many shields of this typology were also represented on the pedestal of the Column of Arcadius in Constantinople (circa 400 A.D.) and seemed to be associated with the heavy cavalry of the Imperial Guard (D’Amato-Negin, 2017, p.252).