- The Technology of Metalwork -
deeply hollowed and filled with tin metal, while an iron pin from Llwyn Bryn-dinas,
Powys, Wales, has a tin bead cast onto its head (Musson et al. 1993). The sword
scabbard just described is one of the earliest surviving examples of true tin-plating
after its reintroduction but the technique became very popular in the years around
the Roman conquest, with tinned brooches, vessels and decorative elements such as
the Tal-y-llyn plaques already mentioned.
Bronze itself was used as a plating, now on iron. If iron is hot-dipped into molten
bronze there is a fast reaction and a strong and coherent plating is formed.
This method was used particularly to plate iron horse-harness but the motivation is
not clear (Northover and Salter 1990). It may have been done simply for the sake
of appearance but equally it could have been used to improve the wear resistance
of the iron. There are several good examples in the Llyn Cerrig Bach, Anglesey,
votive deposit (Savory 1976; Lynch 1991). For the use of precious metals in plating
on copper and bronze see the section on gold.
THE IMPACT OF THE ROMANS
Any discussion of the later stages of iron age metallurgy and metalworking in western
Europe must review the effects of the Roman conquest of Gaul and the Alps and the
arrival of the Romans at the Channel. Here we have space to be concerned only with
the effects in Britain and its century of continued independence. We have already seen
major changes in the metal economy around the middle of the first century Be but the
exact causal relationship with the Roman expansion is not known. Celtic art styles
continued to evolve vigorously in Britain and metallurgy was fully exploited in
this development. Some techniques, such as tin-plating, become apparent only in this
period. The major contribution of the Romans was a new copper alloy, brass,
combining copper and zinc (Bayley 1990). Initially brass was imported in two forms,
as fibulae, and, probably, as coinage then being recycled into the coinage of the
Trinovantes (Northover 1992). Brass brooch blanks from Baldock with a date close to
the conquest show that brass came to be worked in Britain (Bayley 1990) but it was
probably not made there until after the Roman occupation had started. Brass then
spread to smiths continuing to work in the Celtic tradition; for example, there are
brass ingots and Celtic-style objects in the Seven Sisters, Glamorgan, hoard deposited
in the 80S AD (Davies and Spratling 1976). Romanization of style spread with the
romanization of technology but in northern Britain objects continued to be made in
developed Celtic forms into the second century AD and some of the most elaborate
achievements date to this period (MacGregor 1976), in the south the Celtic techniques
became completely submerged by the Roman.GOLD AND SILVER IN THE CELTIC WORLD
Gold and silver and their alloys are metals just as bronze and iron are. The way in
which they are worked will reflect the general level of metallurgical knowledge and
skill attained by a society's craftsmen, and the habitual technical style. Their295