How do you solve a nearly 2,000-year-old jigsaw puzzle? That is the challenge which faced Bethan Bryan, a conservator at National Museums Scotland, when she began the process of piecing together dozens of fragments from a Roman arm guard dating to the middle of the 2nd century. Her job was to recreate how the brass armour would have looked on a legionary’s arm, in preparation for its loan to a major exhibition at the British Museum, Legion: life in the Roman army (see the section at the bottom of this page), after which it will go on permanent display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Surviving arm guards are rare – this is one of only three known from the whole Roman Empire – and although it is the most intact example of its kind, the armour had deteriorated into over 100 pieces by the time it was found at Trimontium, a major Roman fort near Melrose in the Scottish Borders, in 1906. Excavations at this site – named after the three peaks of the nearby Eildon Hills, which overlook the fort – have produced over 4,000 objects illuminating the lives of the people who were stationed and lived there from AD 80-180. Of international significance, they are the most important assemblage of finds from Roman Scotland.
The Trimontium arm guard has been in National Museums Scotland’s collection for over a century, but until recently it remained in pieces – and spread over multiple locations. Dozens of fragments were held in storage, while the upper section was displayed in the National Museum of Scotland, and the lower section was on loan to the Trimontium Museum, which reopened in 2021 following a major redevelopment (see CA 386; more than 200 of the items in its displays are on long-term loan from NMS). With the pieces finally reunited, it is now possible to appreciate the complete object’s visual impact and protective power.
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