Velp

Velp, Gelderland, Netherlands, site of discovery of two impressive assemblages from the early →Migration Period . The first, discovered in 1715, originally rested in an organic container, subsequently deteriorated, and consisted of – according to archival descriptions  - gold ornaments, coins and five medallions attached to a neckring, or to a chain. Most of these pieces were later melted down. Among the gold coins, of an undetermined number, there were some solidi →Solidus, Constantinian emperors to Joannes (423-425). Of the five medallions one was a multiple of Honorius, another - a Galla Placidia, both struck at Ravenna, fitted with identical ornate frames and provided with loops (Figs. 1 and 2). The second gold deposit was discovered in 1851 in the immediate vicinity of the first. It consisted of seven neckrings (Fig. 3) and four finger-rings. The neckrings had a pyriform fastening; one was a plain wire specimen, the other six had a markedly expanded central section of biconical form decorated with a stamp ornament →Sösdala-Untersiebenbrunn Style. Two of the finger-rings were of ordinary wire, one of them formed into a double spiral coil, the other, truncated, was stamp ornamented. The third ring had a rectangular glass setting engraved with a male portrait, the fourth, an oval setting (possibly an intaglio), which had fallen out.

Both hoards originally had belonged to the same assemblage, buried in two parts, presumably during the second quarter of the 5th century AD. The form and style of the neckrings and finger-rings displays obvious analogies with →Migration Period finds from the Baltic region (in south Scandinavia and Pomerania). The surviving items are now held by the Cabinet de Médailles in Paris,  Rijksmuseum Het Koninklijk Penningkabinet in Leiden and the Gosudarstvennyi Muzej Izobrazitel’nych Iskusstv Imieni A. S. Puškina in Moscow:

Analogies: →Laskiv, →Şimleu-Silvaniei, →Zagorzyn, →Karlino, →Młoteczno, →Trąbki Małe

AB

Literature: A. Chabouillet, Observations sur deux médaillons d’or d’Honorius et de Placidie ainsi que sur d’autres médaillons acquis récemment par la Cabinet de Médailles, Revue Numismatiques 3,1, 1883, p. 70-91; A.-O. van Kerkwijk, Les médaillons romains en or de la trouvaille de Velp en 1715, [in:] A. de Witte & V. Tourneur (Ed.) Procès-verabaux et mémoires du Congrès International de Numismatique et d’art de la médaille contemporaire tenu à Bruxelles Juni 1910, Bruxelles 1910, p. 29-38; A. Roes, Some gold torcs fund in Holand, Acta Archaeologica 18, 1947, p. 175-187; A Bursche, Złote medaliony rzymskie w Barbaricum. Symbolika prestiżu i władzy społeczeństw barbarzyńskich u schyłku starożytności, Warszawa 1998, p. 61-65; 250-252, Tab. H i I.

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  Velp, the Honorius medallion struck at Ravenna in 404 (?), Cabinet des Médailles, Paris (Bursche 1998, Plate H).

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  Velp, the Galla Placidia medallion struck at Ravenna in 426-430, Rijksmuseum Het Koninklijk Penningkabinet, Leiden (Bursche 1998, Plate I).

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  Velp, gold neckrings, Gosudarstvennyi Muzej Izobrazitel’nych Iskusstv Imieni A. S. Puškina, Moscow.