Nowadays, there are many accessories used as fasteners, but the brooch was the very first. This item was the only type of closure from ancient times to the early Middle Ages.
What is a brooch?
You don’t know, brooch - what is it? This is a metal clasp that has been used in the Iron and Bronze Ages. The subject consisted of several parts, the upper one was sometimes decorated. A little later, the brooch began to be used not only as a fastener, but also as a decoration, in the Baltic states this trend has been preserved today.
Components of the brooch
The clasp has changed over time, but most often there is an object consisting of the following parts:
- Needle for fastening clothes.
- Needle holder. This is a groove or a narrow holder, into which the end of the needle enters. The needle holder is needed to hold the needle in one position and protect your fingers from an injection.
- The body or handle of the brooch.
- Spring for connecting the needle to the bow.
During the prehistoric period, the fibula underwent numerous changes. Each era left its mark - the bow changed, the object began to serve as decoration. The mechanism of action of the spring and needle holder changed, the functioning of which depended on the suitability of the fastener and so on.
So brooch - what is it? The simplest clasp consisted of a staple and a needle. In the item that has been preserved to this day, the original shape is clearly visible - a square or a circle. After the product was also used as a decoration, they began to paint it with enamel, apply drawing and expensive stones. Both men and women half wore this clasp jewelry . The brooch was needed for fastening clothes, most often a cloak. In antiquity, they served as a cape of the type of bedspreads, the ends of which were required to be fastened.
Later, the brooch transformed into a kind of brooch-pin, which was used to pin the ends of the scarf and collar. Over time, the mount disappeared, and the brooch remained as a piece of jewelry that women still wear today.
The next brooch design consists of a body and a needle. The body was made in the form of an open rim (horseshoe-shaped), just these brooches were very common. The owner of the jewelry, depending on the status, decorated the rim and needle holder with expensive stones, metals or a pattern.
Types of Clasps
Among the museum exhibits mined by archaeologists, there are different types of brooches. All these ancient fasteners have their own names, given depending on what time and people they belonged to. The following brooches are known:
- Greek and Roman.
- Hungarian and Scandinavian.
- Byzantine and others.
For some peoples, brooches were not only clasps for clothes and jewelry, but they were also used as charms against evil spirits and spoilage. After the appearance of the French pin brooch, the protective function passed to it.
In Hungary, brooches were originally made exclusively from wire. The mechanism of the product was as follows - one of the ends of the bow, having made a small spiral turn, passed into a needle, and the second end, which was also twisted by a spiral, was its holder.
The Scandinavian brooches most likely originated from the Hungarian ones, their difference was as follows - the needle and the bow were not a single whole, the elements were pushed onto each other.
The Greek metal clasp for clothes consisted mainly of a pair or four spiral circles interconnected. The needle came out of one spiral and secured to another. The spiral shape of the needle holder indicates the inextricable connection of Greek jewelry with Scandinavian and Hungarian. In addition, similar clothing accessories were discovered during excavations in the south of Italy and parts of Central Europe, where they most likely came from Greece.
Italian brooches are most diverse in terms of their mechanism of action and the shape of the base. In ancient Italian brooches, the structure of the needle holder practically does not differ from the Scandinavian and Hungarian ones, that is, it is formed due to several turns of the spiral. But in the future there is a change - the spiral-shaped needle holder is replaced first by a flat plate of a round shape, and after a while a plate appears with curled edges forming a groove ending in a button.
Forms of Italian brooches
They were found in several forms (we are talking about the shape of the bow):
- Arc (semicircle shape). This is the oldest type of brooch. The bow can be of the same thickness, with a seal in some areas, smooth or with stripes in different directions, decorated with beads and more.
- The scaphoid is arcuate, hollow arch thickened in the middle. The needle holder in this model can be long or short.
- The wriggles are the most diverse group. The samples are very different - with a fancifully curved arch, with a long groove as a needle holder, with a button at the end of the groove (found on the latest brooches) and so on.
Chertroz brooches
Samples with an elongated arch shape, which smoothly flows into a grooved needle holder with a button and an end wrapped upwards, are called Chertrozsky. Such fasteners were found in large numbers during the excavation of the cemetery Chertroza among other gizmos of Italian decoration.
Hallstatt brooches
In the Hallstatt burial ground, among the various Italian forms of brooches, some samples were found that were characteristic of this particular area. Of great interest are the clasps of a spectacle-shaped and crossbow-shaped. The first species consists of a pair of spiral circles connected to each other, this form resembles Hungarian, Scandinavian and Greek brooches. Since they were excavated in Hallstatt, the designation received the corresponding - Hallstatt type.
A distinctive feature of crossbow-shaped brooches is that the spiral is a set of spiral-shaped revolutions located perpendicular to the arch. In individual crossbow-shaped fasteners, the end of the needle holder is decorated with a miniature of the head of an animal or person, inclined backward or directed upward.
The appointment of brooches
The answer to the question of brooch is what you already know. What is its purpose? The ancient Greek female population pinned brooches on both upper and lower clothes, the male gender used the product only on outer clothing. Most often, men cloaks were fixed by fibula on the right shoulder, less often on the chest. Women stabbed clasps on two shoulders.
The description of the brooch is found in the work of Odysseus: “The pious Odysseus was dressed in a purple-colored double woolen cloak; a gold clasp with paired tubes was attached to it; on the outside of the clasp, the skilled craftsman depicted a dog holding a motley doe in his forepaws, reveling in its flutter; and everyone was amazed at the liveliness with which the golden figures were painted - as one strangled its victim, and the other, trying to escape, resisted with her feet. "
Some women fastened the tunic floors with many fasteners. A little later they began to pin the hem slightly above the knee, thus creating a kind of fold, giving the clothes a special look. The brooch was used as a buckle mainly on belts and dressings.
Interesting! In ancient Greece and Rome, fibula was also commonly called a special clamp for the foreskin. These clothing accessories were used to comply with decency when a naked man, for example, an athlete or a gladiator, appeared.
Where can I buy brooch today?
Fibula - what is it, we found out. Where can I buy it? Today, brooches are produced in Estonia. There exists the association "Uku", traditional brooches in the assortment of art products which occupy a special place. You can find there a variety of fasteners: flat, square, cone-shaped, horseshoe-shaped and others. The embossed patterns are decorated with a geometric pattern, while the cone-shaped ones are decorated with a vegetable one. As a decoration for some brooches, "eyes" made of colored stones are used.
Those who cannot buy brooches in Estonia are advised to pay attention to the assortment of thematic departments that sell antiques, or simply order a metal jewelry from a craftsman specializing in the manufacture of symbolic objects.