The Efficacy of Roman Silver in Iron Age Scotland: An Object Trajectory for Spiral Rings

Abstract

This paper uses material efficacy as an analytical position to consider how silver helped to shape large-scale historical trajectories in Iron Age Scotland. Roman silver entered Scotland as imperial matter beginning in the first century ad and later inspired an assemblage of indigenous wearable silver in the fourth–fifth centuries. I investigate the human–silver collaborations involved in the transition from hoarding Roman silver coins to recycling Roman Hacksilber. By tracing the object trajectory of spiral rings, I show how silver's material properties and entanglements played a role in developing Scotland's earliest silver products. Around the fourth century, a diversity of spiral rings was replaced by a specific style of silver spiral finger ring. Silver brought to Iron Age Scotland by the Romans inspired and afforded individuals in northern Britain a new and empowering regional socio-political identity. Material efficacy, as explored in this case study, has relevance beyond Iron Age/Roman studies to any anthropological investigation of underrepresented human agency.