A ROMAN SILVER SERPENT AMULET, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A ROMAN SILVER SERPENT AMULET, CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D. Worked from a flat sheet of silver into the form of a coiled serpent, the body rising from a downward-pointing triangular head, curving through two full loops before ascending in a sinuous S-curve to terminate in a small rounded tail-tip laid across the upper coil. The head is broad and lozenge-shaped, incised with a stylised scale pattern and a central linear ridge running back from the snout. The body is engraved along its entire length with a continuous chevron or herringbone motif imitating scales, the pattern rendered with a fine chased line. The surface retains a dark patination with areas of reddish-brown oxidation, indicating long burial. The serpent is shown in the act of self-coiling, its head brought forward and outward as if presented to the viewer. The reading of the motif is straightforward within its Roman context: the coiled snake is one of the most persistent apotropaic and chthonic images of the Roman world, associated with the household genius, with Asclepius and healing, and with the guardian spirits of place. Worn on the body or kept close to it, such an object was understood to draw off harm and to secure the wearer under the protection of the powers the serpent represented. The choice of silver is not incidental. In the Roman amuletic tradition, silver carried lunar and purificatory associations and was the preferred material for personal protective jewellery of higher status, above the more common bronze equivalents. Silver serpent forms are best known from the well-documented series of Roman snake-rings and snake-bracelets produced across the western and eastern provinces from the first century onward, in which the scaled body is worked in the same chased herringbone technique seen here. The present piece belongs to that broader repertoire but stands apart as a free-standing amuletic figure rather than a ring or bracelet, most likely intended for suspension or attachment to a garment or a domestic shrine. This amulet exemplifies the Roman appetite for compact, portable protective imagery in precious metal, where a familiar apotropaic subject is realised at small scale with the same craft vocabulary used for finger-rings and armlets. Its interest lies in the transfer of a jewellery idiom to a votive or amuletic function, preserving the coiled serpent as an object to be handled and carried rather than worn. Dimensions: Height 3.9 cm

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