The 2,000 year old Roman 'jigsaw puzzle'
- Published
A super rare piece of nearly 2,000 year old armour has been carefully pieced back together by curators in Scotland. The Roman armour has been sitting in the National Museums Scotland’s collection for more than 100 years, broken apart into dozens of pieces.
But the brass arm guard has finally been restored after weeks of patient reconstruction. While the separate brass pieces have been on display for 25 years, this is the first time it has been seen with the pieces put together.
Dr Fraser Hunter, Principal Curator of Prehistoric & Roman Archaeology at National Museums Scotland, said “It was both protection and status symbol – brass was expensive and would have gleamed like gold on his sword arm.”
The reconstructed guard is now on loan to the British Museum, but will eventually be returned to the National Museum of Scotland. “The flexible armguard is an iconic piece of equipment for Roman gladiators, so it is unusual to see it as a sword-arm protection for Roman soldiers too,” said British Museum curator, Richard Abdy.
Bethan Bryan, Assistant Artefact Conservator at the museum said “It’s been a privilege to work on such an extraordinary piece of Scotland’s history. Approaching this ancient jigsaw puzzle required careful consideration and it was important to make sure we could display the piece in a manner as near as possible to how it would have looked 2,000 years ago."