Best in show

“These earrings were discovered purely by chance during the 2014 development of the Fenwick department store on Colchester High Street, which was an important route through a Roman capital city some 2,000 years ago.

Part of a cache of jewellery, they were more than likely hastily buried underneath what was probably the kitchen of a house as news spread of the arrival of Queen Boudicca in AD60. No matter how rich you were, there was no escaping the brute force of the British warrior queen as she attacked the Roman occupying forces.

Such was the devastation she left behind, the archaeology of the area reveals what is known as the ‘Boudiccan destruction horizon’, a sub-layer of reddish-brown ash comprising burned buildings, molten glass and broken pottery. So there is no way of knowing who this jewellery belonged to, but we’re pretty sure the hoard, which also included military bracelets, was the personal property of two people.

The earrings are the only pair of their kind found in Britain, but there are clear parallels in style with examples found in Pompeii, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius just a few years after these were placed in the ground in Colchester.

They are also almost identical to the earrings worn by the women from Roman Egypt captured in the ‘mummy portraits’ from the city of Fayum, which also date from the late first century AD.

The earrings are in perfect condition and could easily be worn today. As they look modern in design, they were the perfect catalyst for an exhibition about the history of jewellery and how people have chosen to adorn themselves, from the rings and torcs of the bronze age to present-day piercings and tattoos.

Bringing the story more up to date, one section of the exhibition, called Made in Essex, features the work of six local jewellery makers whose creations show signs of being influenced by the ancient material. Another section features people from Colchester giving personal accounts of what their favourite pieces mean to them.

The exhibition is the first to be held at the castle since it reopened in 2014. Different teams of people have worked together to get to this stage; we’re a medium-sized service and the chance to be able to get under the skin of such a project in terms of curatorship was a rare and enlightening opportunity.

The show is housed in a chapel on the top floor of the castle and we knew we had to make that space different from the permanent galleries, which have been open for five years. I think there’s a distinct atmosphere to it, which helps us show magical objects that tell wonderful stories.”