The Sidmouth Bronze

The well-known bronze figure of a centaur and rider (pl. viii) now in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter was found on the beach at the foot of the cliffs (near two geological faults) about 200 yards east of the little river Sid by some fishermen in 1840. The only other recorded discoveries of Roman objects at Sidmouth consist of a few coins on the sea beach—a ‘first brass’ of Vespasian, a Commodus of A.D. 183, and a small brass of Constantine I (as well as a Bactrian copper)—and others in Sidmouth or the neighbourhood, while pottery of the first, and perhaps second, century A.D., ultimately from the Early Iron Age hill-fort at High Peak, two miles south-west of Sidmouth, has also been noted. The nearest site of any Roman structure is at Seaton, some nine or ten miles to the northeast, where traces of a Roman house have been observed. Until something more substantial has been discovered we can only conclude that the little harbour at the mouth of the river Sid in the Roman period was visited by a few travellers, but not extensively inhabited. It may even be that the bronze object, though of Roman date, was brought by a post-Roman traveller, or decorated a bowsprit when Sidmouth harbour was in use at a later date. The object comprises a group of a centaur with rider and charging beast set on a pedestal which rests on a shank, now broken; at the top of the shank and immediately below the pedestal is a heavy hook-like bracket. The whole measures 7 in. high (from the top of the centaur's head to the bottom of the broken shank) and 5 in. at its maximum width. It has been cast and is hollow, and is very much worn by the action of the sea, a pebble being still lodged in the mouth and another under the arm of the centaur. The shank also is hollow, about 11⁄2 in. deep, and filled with lead, perhaps in modern times

Ancient history · Archaeology · Bronze · Geography · Harbour · Hoard · Pottery · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · History · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts

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