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Home » The Domestic Sphere » Dress and personal accessories » Jewellery

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Fragment of glass bead found at Hen Gastell, Neath (8th - 10th century) [image 1 of 2]
  • Gold was one of the first metals to be used in Wales, along with copper and alloys such as bronze. The use of gold for jewellery and ornamentation has been a common theme since the earliest times.
Reconstruction of a lady wearing a gold lunula from Llanllyfni, (about 2000BC)
  • The inscription on the locket reads: 'Robert Owen, Born 1771. Died 1858'. The locket also contains a lock of Robert Owen's hair.
Gold locket with ivory portrait miniature of Robert Owen, the factory reformer and Utopian
8th century silver brooch from Penllyn Moor, Glamorgan
  • A splendid collection of 88 engraved gemstones of first to early third century date was found during the excavation of the Fortress Baths. Most of this remarkable collection - one of the largest single deposits to be found anywhere in the Roman Empire - was retrieved from the sediments of a large drain beneath the cold hall of the baths. These gems were lost during the period AD 80 and 230. The gemstones would originally have been set in finger-rings, and served as signets and as charms or talismans for their owners. They were the product of extremely skilled craftsmen who worked on a minute scale without the aid of magnification.The gems are engraved with a wide array of deities, personifications and symbols. A range of semi-precious stones, mostly varieties of quartz, was used for engraving. Most of the Caerleon stones were probably brought from far afield: Cyprus, Egypt, India and Sri Lanka provided much of the raw material for the Roman gem-cutting centres. Most of the gems would have belonged to legionary soldiers, but some may have been lost by the civilians and women who were also admitted to the baths. Caerleon, 'City of the Legion', was known to the Romans as Isca. Established in AD 74 or 75, Isca was one of the three permanent legionary bases in Roman Britain: the other two were at Chester (Deva) and York (Eberacum). The fortress, sited at the lowest bridging-point across the River Usk, held a key position in the military road system in South Wales. Its garrison, as inscriptions tell us, was legio II Augusta, a body of heavy infantry comprising well over 5,000 men. The legion finally departed from Caerleon at the end of the third century.
Caerleon Fortress Baths Roman gems
  • The original was found near the Roman fort of Segontium (Caernarfon) in about 1820. It dates to the second half of the fourth century AD and is an object of high status. Late Roman works of art show that the mode of wearing these heavy brooches was on the right shoulder, with the arm downwards, they gathered together the two edges of a heavy cloak draped over the shoulders. The original brooch is in the possession of Gwynedd County Council.
Gold crossbow brooch (replica) from the Roman fort of Segontium