File:Gold Roman ear ring (FindID 569893).jpg

English: Part of a gold, Roman earring dating to the 1^st or 2^nd centuries AD.

The earring consists of a double boss made up of two convex faces from a single sheet of metal. There are two small, granulated pellets which sit on the waist between the two bosses. There is no form of attachment but it is likely that there would have been gold wire soldered on.

This earring is an Allason-Jones type 13b which normally has three pellets on the waist. It is fairly unusual in Britain however an earring of this type has been found at Caerleon, Gwent (National Museum of Wales Acc. No. 54.389A:F5). Earrings of this type developed during the late 1^st century AD and went out of fashion by the middle of the 2^nd century.

L. Allason-Jones (1989) Earrings in Roman Britain, British Archaeological Report 201.

Lindsay Allason-Jones comments: this type is unusual in Britain where the single boss type (13a) was more popular. It is particularly similar to one from Caerleon, which has three granulations between the bosses, whereas your has two (A-J 1989, Plate 15, no. 16). My data base suggests that the double boss type was developed in the late 1st century and had spread widely across the Empire by the Flavian period. It went out of fashion in the 2nd century but this just means it stopped being made, not that it stopped being worn - people don't tend to chuck out their gold jewellery just because it's old fashioned.