A rich late Roman hoard, such as that found in Mildenhall in Suffolk in 1942, will perhaps be the first image to spring to mind at the mention of silver plate in the British Museum (BM). Already the subject of much study, generally of an archaeological or art historical nature, the items from Mildenhall and other treasures occur here again in this new publication alongside a wide range of other silverware in the collections of three BM departments: Greece and Rome (G&R); Britain, Europe and Prehistory (BEP); and Middle East (ME). BEP holds by far the largest number of items, 208 of them from mainland Britain, G&R far fewer, nearly all (57) being from France, and ME has just 20 Sasanian and related pieces. Visually stunning as these objects are, it is the stories they tell about their source material and manufacture that are foregrounded in this volume, from the mining of silver-bearing ores right through artefact production to repairs.
The first three chapters are by the editors. The first covers sources, mining and smelting, and interrogates Pliny the Elder’s descriptions of various aspects of silver production and treatment. The manufacturing techniques and tools used to make silverware in antiquity follow, then embellishment and finishing, ending with an overview of changes and developments in production, form and decoration. These chapters are supported by a catalogue of 313 objects in the BM collection that have been subject to one or more technical examinations at some time in recent decades. The descriptions focus on the method of manufacture revealed by these examinations and give the results of non-destructive semi-quantitative XRF analyses, and in a very few cases quantitative analyses of drilled samples. These results are drawn together in a separate table that gives the location on each vessel of the analysis, such as ‘body’ or ‘handle’. Not everything that might be expected is here, with the Proiecta casket from the Esquiline treasure a notable absence as it has been neither examined nor analysed, although other objects from the treasure have been. Photographs, taken in a consistent and informative style, accompany all but a very few of these items, while a catalogue of a further 43 objects held by other institutions but examined at the BM is not illustrated. Three appendices by the editors discuss the analytical techniques used, their advantages (many) and disadvantages (few). A fourth summarises the tools used in the manufacture and decoration of silver plate, and the visible signs of their use. Although lead isotope analyses have not been carried out on any BM item, a fifth appendix by F.W. Rademakers defines the technique and the factors affecting the interpretation of the results.
The volume might have stopped there, but it is enriched by two chapters that address the material from various perspectives: Richard Hobbs on silver plate in the Roman and Early Byzantine world, and St John Simpson on the Sasanian and related silverware. A well-illustrated appendix to Simpson’s chapter describing a selection of the latter in detail should be used in tandem with the analytical results in the main catalogue.
These contemporary, but stylistically different, assemblages are distilled by Hobbs and Simpson into a variety of topics. Provenance, museum history, form, function, typology, decoration, iconography, circulation (including recycling), patterns in deposition and more are covered, making use of evidence from the technical chapters and from other assemblages. There are depths of knowledge and a wealth of information here that are a pleasure to read but cannot be adequately summarised. Highlights in Hobbs include contemporary literary evidence, wall paintings and mosaics showing silverware in use — a fourth-century mosaic from Türkiye depicts silver vessels at an alfresco banquet, as does the Seuso platter in the National Museum of Hungary. The motivation behind production, imperial and peer largesse, the association between flanged bowls and the Late Roman currency system, moving vessels around the Empire and down the generations — here are imperial control and the habits of élite society crystallised in silver.
There are social and economic links, if not necessarily direct parallels, between the use of silver in the Near East and in the Roman Empire. Simpson draws a fascinating picture of how Sasanian material culture was gradually recognised in the early twentieth century. Technical criteria were used from the 1960s to distinguish between genuinely ancient vessels and modern forgeries and also enabled Sasanian silver plate to be separated out from contemporary metalwork. Silver was the basis for the monetary economy in the Near East, with vessels functioning as the equivalent of high-denomination coinage and the state controlling supply. Royal largesse was another form of control, and iconography functioned as both propaganda and as a reflection of élite life, while the forms and decoration of base metal items, glassware and pottery reflected those of silverware.
The full biographies of these two groups of silverware, from the sources of the ores to recycling and burial, provide an informative and useful view of the material, an object lesson in what can be done when curatorial and scientific specialists study artefacts in museum collections from a range of perspectives. They demonstrate that the more that can be said about an object, the more it can say in return, and that groups of carefully studied objects are very vocal. Beautifully illustrated and produced, this stimulating volume deserves a wide readership well beyond those interested in scientific techniques and silver plate. It is freely available online (https://doi.org/10.48582/jpx6-eg79), allowing as broad a dissemination as possible.
