ROMAN HAIRPIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 21 April 1934, Page 2

ROMAN HAIRPIN

The excavations at the Roman amphitheatre at Caerleon, near Newport, in Monmouthshire, have yielded some interesting discoveries. The bath building just outside the amphitheatre was pulled down in Roman times, and in one of the roadways subsequently built across its ruins there has been found a brass Vespasian coin. Vespasian was commander of the Roman forces in southern England in the liist century and of the second legion quartered at Caerleon. An ear pick, a dainty silver honey spoon, and a woman’s bronze hairpin, the end of which is delicately decorated in the form of a hand with the first finger and thumb holding an apple, have been recovered, as well as two mason’s tools known as banker’s chisels, very much like those in use to-day.