Cabinet / grille rod / iron rods

Object/Artifact

Trimontium Museum

©National Museums Scotland. Digitised from a positive on film by The Trimontium Trust

Name/Title

Cabinet / grille rod / iron rods

Entry/Object ID

X.FRA 311

Description

Five rods of forged iron, pieces of a furniture piece, either a grille from an ornate wooden cabinet or from a seat.From the Roman site at Newstead (Trimontium), Roxburghshire, 80 - 180 AD. They are designed to look like turned woodwork. They have mouldings expanding at a central point into a larger disc. All are broken and incomplete.

Use

Used for decoration, and practically to help keep the cabinet together.

Context

Found at Trimontium in Pit XVI. Usually all that survives of Roman furniture are the metal rods or fittings. Complete examples from Herculaneum in Italy, together with some pictures and surviving wooden fragments, show that the Romans used chairs, tables, couches, beds and chests.

Collection

National Museums Scotland

Acquisition

Accession

X.FRA 311

Source (if not Accessioned)

National Museums of Scotland

Made/Created

Date made

80 - 180

Time Period

1st - 2nd century

Ethnography

Cultural Region

Continent

Europe

Culture/Tribe

Roman

Lexicon

Nomenclature 4.0

Nomenclature Primary Object Term

Cabinet

Nomenclature Sub-Class

Storage & Display Furniture

Nomenclature Class

Furniture

Nomenclature Category

Category 02: Furnishings

Getty AAT

Guide Term

cabinets by form

Concept

rods (object genre)

Other Names

Name Type

Previous Accesssion Number

Other Name

I 15-210 to 214

Dimensions

Length

330 mm

Material

Iron

Relationships

Related Person or Organization

Person or Organization

James Curle

Notes

Excavator

Web Links and URLs

"A Roman Frontier Post and Its People", J. Curle. Plate LXIV., Figs. 1, 2, 4 and 5, and p. 286-287, National Museums Scotland web link to object , Canmore web link to Newstead (Trimontium)

Research Notes

Research Type

Reference

Notes

"...Of these the most striking are five beautifully forged rods of iron. Four of them are illustrated in Plate LXIV., Figs. 1, 2, 4 and 5. They measure from 9 inches to 13 inches in length, and are decorated with a series of hammered mouldings expanding at a central point into a larger disc 21⁄8 inches in diameter. The pattern is the same in all of the pieces. In spite of the fact that they are obviously incomplete, they seem to represent, in the hoard, old metal about to be used again rather than work in an unfinished condition. It will be noted that in all of them the mouldings on either side of the larger disc correspond, a circumstance which suggests that they were used in a horizontal rather than in a perpendicular position. This fact, together with the number found, five pieces, gives a clue to the purpose for which they were forged. They must have formed part of the connecting rods binding together the ends of a seat, perhaps a sella castrensis. It is quite clear that these decorated pieces were intended to be welded to longer metal rods, and this has been done in the piece which has been omitted from the illustration. On one end a metal rod is affixed measuring from the central disc to its end a length of 8 inches, so that, if the opposite end was treated in the same way, the whole would have a length of 16 inches, which would probably mean that the seat was some 8 inches in length." - From J. Curle - "A Frontier Post and Its People", p. 286-87