New find of Roman military equipment of the period of the Roman–Bosporan war of 45–49 AD from the Eastern Crimea

Abstract

The Artezian fortified settlement in the Azov Sea coast of Eastern Crimea perished in a strong fire at the beginning of the Roman–Bosporan war in 46/47 AD. In the homogeneous fire layer, along with numerous items of jewellery, silver, bronze and glass vessels, a heavily burned out round bronze plaque, 7.7–7.8 cm in diameter with a hole in the centre was found. The plaque is decorated along the edge with a figural frieze, depicting two pairs of animals opposing each other: ‘dog–bull’, ‘dog–wild boar’. Besides two animals are running after each other: a lion and a roe deer.

The decoration of the plaque from Artezian finds parallels among plaques from the military camps along the limes of Lower and Upper Rhine and Danube. Objects similar in shape depicting animals in circular friezes are also known in Dacia and in the South-Western Crimea. The parallels to the images of the plaque and options of interpreting the function of the piece are discussed. The combination of pairs of opposing animals and animals running after each other finds parallels only on the belt plaques from Asciburgium and Magdalensberg. Thus, there are reasons to consider the disc from Artezian as an element of Roman military equipment of the first half of the 1st century AD.