Tyne and Wear HER(16747): South Shields, cameo - Details
16747
Newcastle
South Shields, cameo
South Shields
NZ36NE
Dress and Personal Accessories
Jewellery Fitting
Cameo
Roman
C2-C3
Find
Length 4.7 cm. Of Indian sardonyx, in which an opaque white stratum has been carved to depict a bear, with the head of a ?goat between its forepaws, against a mottled translucent stratum of a greenish brown colour. There is no precise record of the findspot or of the circumstances of the discovery. This is the finest known cameo from Roman Britain. Its nature and condition suggest that it came from a burial. Great North Museum: Hancock 1923.52
36
67
NZ3667
DJ Smith, 1974, Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle upon Tyne - An Illustrated Introduction, 41; The Archaeological Journal XXV (1868), pp 103-7; Archaeologia Aeliana, Series Four, Vol XXXIX (1961), pp 19-20, 34, plate viii; J.M.C. Toynbee, 1963, Art in Roman Britain (second edition) no. 139, pl 158; ABUR 372