My Material Millenium

Today was a huge milestone in my PhD research: the inclusion of the 1,000^th object in my database recording the material culture of magic in Roman Britain. This seems like a good place to stop, take stock, and look at some metrics of what I’ve been working on so far. If reaching a milestone like this isn’t an excuse to make some gratuitous pie-charts in Excel then I don’t know what is.

I’m collating a diverse range of objects, currently represented by 43 distinct classifications of objects types. Inevitably this total will rise as the research continues, but to date the objects with magical associations I have described so far are: Amulet Case, Antefix, Bead, Beaker, Bell, Belt Fitting, Bowl, Bracelet, Brooch, Button and Loop Fastener, Carving, Cymbal, Disc, Earring, Egg-shaped object, Figurine, Fitting, Fossil, Handle, Intaglio, Knife, Lamella, Lamp, Linchpin, Mount, Other, Pendant, Pin, Plaque, Rattle, Ring, Rod, Roundel, Seal Box, Spoon, Stake, Stamp, Strap Fitting, Tank, Tooth, Vessel, Wall Plaster, Weight. It is a pre-requisite for the inclusion criteria that a sensible case can be made for a ‘magical’ function for every specific object in the database.

There are nuances within this classifications, such as an Antler Roundel depicting a phallic symbol; which the temptation would be to classify this as a ‘Roundel’, these objects are almost universally pierced for suspension and show signs of use-wear on the suspension loops. Thus such things are, functionally, ‘pendants’ in this classification and roundels are instead large, rounded discs of a similar type but without the same suspension criteria. In the same vein, a pierced tooth is also a pendant, because it was suspended – the classification ‘tooth’s is for worked teeth with no evidence for suspension/function. Classifications are important for this sort of data set, with over a thousand objects used in comparison with each other for the purposes of discussing temporal change, typological evolution (maybe), context, and function how I choose to classify them will certainly affect how they are analysed once the data gathering period is complete.

FIGURE 1: An antler roundel, suspended as a pendant from Malton, North Yorkshire. In the collection of Malton Museum.

I’ve hidden the raw numbers, as this post is an opportunity to provide interim highlights rather than definite totals, but the chart shows the diverse nature of the material culture of magic in Roman Britain thus far: Pendants, Mounts, and Bells representing the largest groups; certainly there is a strong evidential base for connecting magical practices to things worn or used directly by people.

There are caveats here: at least 100 additional bells to be included in this database, so that segment will increase imminently; also, there are no curse-tablets yet included which will number over 100 easily. Some types are represented by a single find, such as a wooden stake from Swan Lane, London inscribed with UTERE FELIX and an incredible glass bowl from Wint Hill, Somerset now in the Ashmolean Museum.

The objects are also categorised into one of 15 larger groupings related to the form of the object type. These are: Animal Remains; Bulla; Classical Deity; Epigraphic Object; Erotic Scene; Evil Eye; Gnostic Deity; Human Figural; Other; Other Deity; Lunula; Noise-making Object; Phallic Object; Vulvate Object; Zoomorphic Object. The relative proportions of this highlights the current dominance of phallic objects (30% of records) in the database. The additions of the bells and curses mentioned above will reduce this figure somewhat. This chart goes some way to highlight the importance of both image and text in the archaeology of magic but, it should be pointed out, it does fundamentally undervalue the role of ephemeral ritual practices such as the spoken word, physical gestures, or use of organic (particularly botanical) components in the available magical toolkit.

This information has so far been gathered from online databases (e.g. the PAS), excavation reports, unpublished grey literature reports, journal articles, various corpora, correspondence with museums, gallery visits (as a visitor), and archival visits (as a researcher to a museum with access behind-the-scenes): it is thus as comprehensive as I am capable of making it, but there is much yet to do.  Data gathering will continue throughout 2018 with visits to numerous museums and archives in the pipeline.