Silver jug made in Italy, with votive inscription from Q. Domitius Tutus toMercury (mid-1st century CE)
The Berthouvillehoard was discovered in early 1830 when farmer Prosper Taurin struck a Roman tile while ploughing his field near the village ofBerthouville, in Normandy, France.[4] Once dislodged, the tile uncovered the hastily buried temple treasure[5] a mere 20 cm beneath the modern surface.
Thetrésor de Berthouville is one of only three known collections of valuable objects definitely associated with a local religious cult in Gaul orBritannia.[7]
Achilles mourningPatroclus on a silver jug, also from Tutus' votive offeringAphiale that was part of Tutus' gift to the shrine of Mercury Canetonensis
The treasure consists of silver and other metalwork, of varying type, quality and dates in the 1st to late 2nd centuries of the Common Era. The hoard was hidden in the late 2nd or early 3rd century, but contained heirloom pieces like the repoussé silver jug that was made in Italy in the 1st century CE. The find totalled 93 items, some of which were dissociated handles and silver appliqués, with a total weight of 25 kg.[4] Most of the items are bowls, cups and jugs,[8] but there is also aphiale for libations.[9]
There are also two silver statuettes of Mercury (the larger 60 cm tall) and a silver bust of a goddess, probably his motherMaia,[10] perhaps representingRomanized versions of Gallic deities. The pairing of a Roman god with a Gallic goddess would be characteristic ofGallo-Roman religion.[11]
Four of the bowls have incised emblematic designs associated with Mercury, and the formulaic Latin initialismVSLM, standing forvotum solvit libens merito ("He fulfils his vow freely, as is deserved").[12] Nine of the vessels form a group of luxury domestic silver of 1st century date[13] with iconographic connections toDionysus rather than to Mercury, marked as votive offerings(vota) of one Q. Domitius Tutus; they include a matching pair of silver drinking cups (scyphi) withDionysiac imagery ofcentaurs,[14] and a pair of silver wine-jugs.[8]
Excavations near the find-spot in 1861-1862 and 1986[15] revealed a Gallo-Roman theatre and a shrine that may have been the shrine to which the silver objects had been dedicated.
The Berthouville treasure left France for the first time to be studied and conserved at theJ. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, as part of collaborative multi-year conservation project between the Getty and the Cabinet des Médailles.[16] Study of the objects revealed previously obscured fine details on the works, and increased understanding of the interaction between Roman and Gallic cultures in what is now northern France.[4]
The restored treasure was exhibited at theGetty Villa from November 2014 to August 2015, then went on tour in the US and Europe before being returned to Paris.[4]
^Bouillett, Auguste (1 January 1897). Klincksieck, C. (ed.)."Un manuscrit inconnu du Liber Miraulorum Sancte Fidis"(PDF).Mémoires de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France. Sixth series (in French).8 (1).Paris, France: Société nationale des antiquaires de France:228–232.ISSN2263-4428.OCLC491892795. Retrieved9 July 2021 – viaBibliothèque Nationale de France.Reporting M. Join-Lambert's excavations of two temples, a theatre and wells near the site in 1896 with date and location of excavation
^Ernest Babelon (director of the département des monnaies, médailles et antiques, BN),Le trésor d'argenterie de Bertouville près de Bernay (Eure) conservé au Département de médailles et antiques de la Bibliothèque nationale, Paris 1916; Ruth E. Leader-Newby,Silver and Society in Late Antiquity: Functions and Meanings of Silver Plate (Ashgate) 2004; D.E. Strong,Greek and Roman Gold and Silver Plate (London 1968)
^On Roman temple treasures in general, see A. Henwood Griffiths,Temple Treasures: A Study Based on the Works of Cicero and the Fasti of Ovid (Philadelphia 1943).
^Ruth E. Leader-Newby,Silver and Society in Late Antiquity: Functions and Meanings of Silver Plate Ashgate; 2004; p. 73
^Rosmerta, for instance, was frequently associated with Mercury in Gaul.
^Ruth E. Leader-Newby,Silver and Society in Late Antiquity: Functions and Meanings of Silver Plate Ashgate. 2004.
^Similar to silver found atBoscoreale and in theHouse of the Menander atPompeii, overwhelmed by the eruption of 79 CE, and similarly composed of drinking vessels (Leader-Newby).
