Rigid, usually twisted ring worn around the neck or arm, often of precious metal
Bronze
4th-century BC buffer-type torc from France
The Dying Gaul
, a Roman statue with a torc in the
Capitoline Museums
in Rome
A
torc
, also spelled
torq
or
torque
, is a large rigid or stiff
neck ring
in metal, made either as a single piece or from strands twisted together. The great majority are open at the front, although some have hook and ring closures and a few have
mortice and tenon
locking catches to close them. Many seem designed for near-permanent wear and would have been difficult to remove.
Torcs have been found in
Scythian
,
Illyrian
,
[1]
Thracian
,
Celtic
, and other cultures of the
European Iron Age
from around the 8th century BC to the 3rd century AD. For Iron Age Celts, the gold torc seems to have been a key object. It identified the wearer, apparently usually female until the 3rd century BC, thereafter male, as a person of high rank, and many of the finest works of ancient
Celtic art
are torcs. Celtic torcs disappeared in the
Migration Period
, but during the
Viking Age
torc-style metal necklaces, mainly in silver, came back into fashion.
[2]
Similar neck-rings are also part of the jewellery styles of various other cultures and periods.
Terminology and definition
[
edit
]
Unusually complex gold spiral ribbon torc from the
Stirling Hoard
, Scotland.
The word comes from
Latin
torquis
(or
torques
), from
torqueo
, "to twist", because of the twisted shape many of the rings have. Typically, neck-rings that open at the front when worn are called "torcs" and those that open at the back "collars". Smaller
bracelets
and
armlets
worn around the wrist or on the upper arm sometimes share very similar forms. Torcs were made from single or multiple intertwined
metal
rods, or "ropes" of twisted wire. Most of those that have been found are made from gold or bronze, less often silver, iron or other metals (gold, bronze and silver survive better than other metals when buried for long periods).
Elaborate examples, sometimes hollow, used a variety of techniques but complex decoration was usually begun by
casting
and then worked by further techniques. The
Ipswich Hoard
includes unfinished torcs that give clear evidence of the stages of work.
[3]
Flat-ended terminals are called "buffers", and in types like the "fused-buffer" shape, where what resemble two terminals are actually a single piece, the element is called a "muff".
[4]
Bronze Age Europe and the East
[
edit
]
There are several types of rigid gold and sometimes bronze necklaces and collars of the later
European Bronze Age
, from around 1200 BC, many of which are classed as "torcs". They are mostly twisted in various conformations, including the "twisted ribbon" type, where a thin strip of gold is twisted into a spiral. Other examples twist a bar with a square or X section, or just use round wire, with both types in the three 12th? or 11th-century BC specimens found at Tiers Cross, Pembrokeshire, Wales.
[5]
The
Milton Keynes Hoard
contained two large examples of thicker rounded forms, as also used for bracelets.
[6]
Two uncleaned Bronze Age twisted bar torcs with flared cylinder terminals, as often found folded up, with bracelets, England
The
"Shami statue"
, depicting a
Parthian
nobleman, shows him wearing a torc.
The terminals are not emphasized as in typical Iron Age torcs, though many can be closed by hooking the simple terminals together. Many of these "torcs" are too small to be worn round the neck of an adult, and were either worn as bracelets or armlets, or by children or statues. Archaeologists find dating many torcs difficult, with some believing torcs were retained for periods of centuries as heirlooms, and others believing there were two periods of production. Differing ratios of silver in the gold of other objects?typically up to 15% in the Bronze Age but up to 20% in the Iron Age?can help decide the question.
[7]
There are several flared gold torcs with a C-shaped section in the huge
Mooghaun North Hoard
of Late Bronze Age gold from 800 to 700 BC found in
County Clare
in Ireland.
[8]
To the East, torcs appear in
Scythian art
from the
Early Iron Age
, and include "classicizing" decoration drawing on styles from the east. Torcs are also found in
Thraco-Cimmerian
art. Torcs are found in the
Tolstaya burial
and the Karagodeuashk kurgan (
Kuban
area), both dating to the 4th century BC. A torc is part of the
Pereshchepina
hoard dating to the 7th century AD. Thin torcs, often with animal head terminals, are found in the art of the Persian
Achaemenid Empire
, with some other elements derived from Scythian art.
Celtic torcs
[
edit
]
Gold Celtic torc with three "balusters" and decoration including animals, found in
Glauberg
, Germany, 400 BC
Depictions of the gods and goddesses of
Celtic mythology
sometimes show them wearing or carrying torcs, as in images of the god
Cernunnos
wearing one torc around his neck, with torcs hanging from his antlers or held in his hand, as on the
Gundestrup cauldron
. This may represent the deity as the source of power and riches, as the torc was a sign of nobility and high social status.
[9]
The famous Roman copy of the original Greek sculpture
The Dying Gaul
depicts a wounded Gaulish warrior naked except for a torc, which is how
Polybius
described the
gaesatae
, Celtic warriors from modern northern Italy or the
Alps
, fighting at the
Battle of Telamon
in 225 BC, although other Celts there were clothed.
[10]
One of the earliest known depictions of a torc can be found on the
Warrior of Hirschlanden
(6th century BC), and a high proportion of the few Celtic statues of human figures, mostly male, show them wearing torcs.
Other possible functions that have been proposed for torcs include use as rattles in rituals or otherwise, as some have stones or metal pieces inside them, and representations of figures thought to be deities carrying torcs in their hand may depict this. Some are too heavy to wear for long, and may have been made to place on cult statues. Very few of these remain but they may well have been in wood and not survived. Torcs were clearly valuable, and often found broken in pieces, so being a
store of value
may have been an important part of their use. It has been noted that the Iberian gold examples seem to be made at fixed weights that are multiples of the
Phoenician
shekel
.
[11]
With bracelets, torcs are "the most important category of Celtic gold", though armlets and anklets were also worn; in contrast finger-rings were less common among the early Celts.
[12]
The earliest Celtic torcs are mostly found buried with women, for example, the gold torc from the
La Tene period
chariot burial
of a princess, found in the
Waldalgesheim chariot burial
in Germany, and others found in female graves at
Vix
in France (illustrated) and
Reinheim
. Another La Tene example was found as part of a hoard or ritual deposit buried near
Erstfeld
in Switzerland.
[13]
It is thought by some authors that the torc was mostly an ornament for women until the late 3rd century BC, when it became an attribute of warriors.
[14]
However, there is evidence for male wear in the early period; in a rich double burial of the
Hallstatt period
at
Hochmichele
, the man wears an iron torc and the female a necklace with beads.
[15]
A heavy torc in silver over an iron core with bull's head terminals, weighing over 6 kilos, from Trichtingen, Germany, probably dates to the 2nd century BC (illustrated).
[16]
The
Snettisham Torc
contains a kilogram of gold. It was found in
Norfolk
, England.
Many finds of torcs, especially in groups and in association with other valuables but not associated with a burial, are clearly deliberate deposits whose function is unclear. They may have been ritual deposits or hidden for safekeeping in times of warfare. Some may represent the work-in-progress of a workshop.
[17]
After the early period, torcs are especially prominent in the Celtic cultures reaching to a coast of the
Atlantic
, from modern Spain to Ireland, and on both sides of the
English Channel
.
Some very elaborately worked torcs with relief decoration in a late form of
La Tene style
have been found in Britain and Ireland, dating from roughly the 3rd to 1st centuries BC. There may be a connection with an older tradition in the British Isles of elaborate gold neckwear in the form of
gold lunulas
, which seem centred on Ireland in the
Bronze Age
, and later flat or curved wide collars; gold twisted ribbon torcs are found from both periods, but also imported styles such as the fused-buffer.
[18]
The most elaborate late Insular torcs are thick and often hollow, some with terminals forming a ring or loop. The most famous English example is the 1st-century BC multi-stranded
electrum
Snettisham Torc
found in northwestern
Norfolk
in England (illustrated),
[19]
while the single hollow torc in the
Broighter Gold
hoard, with relief decoration all round the hoop, is the finest example of this type from Ireland, also 1st century BC.
[20]
The
Stirling Hoard
, a rare find in Scotland of four gold torcs, two of them twisted ribbons, dating from the 3rd to 1st century BC, was discovered in September 2009.
[21]
Torc from
Burela
, Galicia, with double moulding
scotiae
terminals, and hoop decoration. At 1.812 kg (3.99 lb) the heaviest Iberian torc.
[22]
The Roman
Titus Manlius
in 361 BC challenged a Gaul to single combat, killed him, and then took his torc. Because he always wore it, he received the nickname
Torquatus
(the one who wears a torc),
[23]
and it was adopted by his family. After this, Romans adopted the torc as a decoration for distinguished soldiers and elite units during
Republican
times. A few Roman torcs have been discovered.
[24]
Pliny the Elder
records that after a battle in 386 BC (long before his lifetime) the Romans recovered 183 torcs from the Celtic dead, and similar booty is mentioned by other authors.
[10]
It is not clear whether the
Gallo-Roman
"Warrior of Vacheres", a sculpture of a soldier in Roman military dress, wears a torc as part of his Roman uniform or as a reflection of his Celtic background.
Quintilian
says that the
Emperor Augustus
was presented by
Gauls
with a gold torc weighing 100
Roman pounds
(nearly 33 kilograms or 73 pounds),
[10]
far too heavy to wear. A torc from the 1st century BC
Winchester Hoard
, is broadly in Celtic style but uses the Roman technique of laced gold wire, suggesting it may have been a "diplomatic gift" from a Roman to a British tribal king.
[25]
[26]
A very late example of a torc used as ceremonial item in early Medieval Wales can be found in the writings of
Gerald of Wales
. The author wrote that there still existed a certain royal torc that had once been worn by Prince
Cynog ap Brychan
of
Brycheiniog
(fl. 492 AD) and was known as Saint Kynauc's Collar. Gerald encountered and described this relic first-hand while travelling through
Wales
in 1188. Of it he says, "it is most like to gold in weight, nature, and colour; it is in four pieces wrought round, joined together artificially, and clefted as it were in the middle, with a dog's head, the teeth standing outward; it is esteemed by the inhabitants so powerful a relic, that no man dares swear falsely when it is laid before him."
[27]
It is of course possible that this torc long pre-dated the reign of Prince Cynog and was a much earlier relic that had been recycled during the
British Dark Ages
to be used as a symbol of royal authority. It is now lost.
There are mentions in medieval compilations of
Irish mythology
; for example in the
Lebor Gabala Erenn
(11th century)
Elatha
wore 5 golden torcs when meeting
Eriu
.
[28]
[29]
Romano-British beaded torcs
[
edit
]
Section of a beaded torc found in
Yorkshire
, AD 75-200
After the
Roman conquest of Britain
, from about 75 AD for a century or more, a different type called the "beaded torc" appears in
Roman Britain
, mainly in the northern "frontier" region, in two types, A with separate "beads" and B made in one piece. These are in copper alloy rather than precious metal, and evidently more widely spread in society than the elite Iron Age Celtic examples.
[30]
Shapes and decoration
[
edit
]
French fused-buffer type with "muff", c. 350 BC
Sleek Bronze Age torc in striated gold, northern France, c. 1200?1000 BC, 794 grams
Most Achaemenid torcs are thin single round bars with matching animal heads as the terminals, facing each other at the front. Some Early Celtic forms depart from the normal style of torc by lacking a break at the throat, and instead are heavily decorated at the continuous front, with animal elements and short rows of "
balusters
", rounded projections coming to a blunt point; these are seen both on the sculpted torc worn by the stone "
Glauberg
Warrior" and a gold torc (illustrated) found in the same
oppidum
.
Later Celtic torcs nearly all return to having a break at the throat and strong emphasis on the two terminals. The Vix torc has two very finely made winged horses standing on fancy platforms projecting sideways just before the terminals, which are flattened balls under lions' feet. Like other elite Celtic pieces in the "orientalizing" style, the decoration shows Greek influence but not a classical style, and the piece may have been made by Greeks in the Celtic taste, or a "Graeco-Etruscan workshop", or by Celts with foreign training.
[31]
Spiral ribbon torcs, usually with minimal terminals, continue a Bronze Age type and are found in the
Stirling Hoard
from Scotland, and elsewhere:
[32]
"Although over 110 identifiable British [includes Ireland] ribbon torcs are known, the dating of these simple, flexible ornaments is elusive", perhaps indicating "a long-lived preference for ribbon torcs, which continued for over 1,000 years".
[33]
The terminals were often slightly flared plain round cylinders which were folded back to hook round each other to fasten the torc at the throat. Other Celtic torcs may use various ways of forming the hoop: plain or patterned round bars, two or more bars twisted together, thin round rods (or thick wire) wound round a core, or woven gold wire. A rarer type twists a single bar with an X profile.
Except in British looped terminals, the terminals of Iron Age torcs are usually formed separately. The "buffer" form of terminal was the most popular in finds from modern France and Germany, with some "fused buffer" types opening at the rear or sides. In both buffer types and those with projecting fringes of ornament, decoration in low
relief
often continues back round the hoop as far as the midpoint of the side view. In Iberian torcs thin gold bars are often wound round a core of base metal, with the rear section a single round section with a decorated surface.
The c. 150 torcs found in the lands of the
Iberian Celts
of
Galicia
favoured terminals ending in balls coming to a point or small buffer ("pears"), or a shape with a double moulding called
scotiae
.
[34]
The pointed ball is also found in northern Italy, where the hoops often end by being turned back upon themselves so that the terminals face out to the sides, perhaps enabling closure by hooking round. Both of these mostly used plain round bars or thin rods wound round a core. In the terminals of British torcs loops or rings are common, and the main hoop may be two or more round bars twisted together, or several strands each made up of twisted wire. Decoration of the terminals in the finest examples is complex but all abstract. In these two types the hoop itself normally has no extra decoration, though the large torc in the Irish
Broighter Gold
hoard is decorated all round the hoop, the only Irish example decorated in this way.
Gallery
[
edit
]
-
Torc, found in Hungary, c. 1500 BC, bronze
-
Hallstatt culture gold torc or collar with fastening, c. 550 BC
-
Model chariot from the
Oxus Treasure
, with both figures wearing torcs
-
Achaemenid
torc from Persia, c. 350 BC,
Susa
, with ribbed hoop, animal head terminals, and stone inlays, from the
Acropole Tomb
-
Gold Celtic torc found in
Vix
, France, 480 BC; see text.
-
The four
Leekfrith torcs
, dating from c. 400?250 BC, which are the oldest gold torcs found in Great Britain
-
Torques de Foxados
:
Gallaecian
torc with double "scotia" terminals and 6-fold symmetric interlaced motive
-
Bell shaped
torc terminal from A Guarda,
Galicia
. Museo do Castro de St. Tegra.
-
The twisted ribbon type, here from the
Stirling Hoard
, is found in both Bronze and Iron Ages
-
Northern
Gallaeci
torc (Artabri type with "pear" terminals)
Galicia
, showing construction, and decoration of the hoop
-
The
Trichtingen
silver torc with bull heads, perhaps 2nd century BC
-
The
Snettisham Hoard
, perhaps the stock of a goldsmith, showing the variety of British forms, c. 75 BC
-
The
Gallo-Roman
"Warrior of Vacheres"
-
Two
East Anglian
looped torcs from the
Ipswich Hoard
-
-
Large silver torc from the
Cordoba Treasure
in the British Museum
-
Ornate Iron Age neck collar from
Lochar Moss
in
Dumfrieshire
, Scotland (British Museum)
[35]
-
Celtic golden torque found in
Marche
in a gaulish necropolis, National Archaeological Museum,
Ancona
-
Torc, 2nd Iron Age, Castro Culture, Iberian Peninsula,
National Archaeology Museum
, Portugal
-
See also
[
edit
]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Torcs
.
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
The Illyrians by J. J. Wilkes, 1992,
ISBN
0-631-19807-5
, page 223, "Illyrian chiefs wore heavy bronze torques"
- ^
Jim Cornish,
Elementary: Viking Hoards
Archived
2007-10-14 at the
Wayback Machine
, on the Centre for Distance Learning & Innovation Website
- ^
Brailsford, 19
- ^
Example in the British Museum
- ^
Art Saved: Three Bronze Age Torcs
, on the Art Fund Website
- ^
"Treasure Annual Report 2000"
(PDF)
.
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
. 2001. pp. 13?15, 133. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2012-03-01
. Retrieved
2010-07-26
.
- ^
Cahill, 120?121
- ^
Wallace, 99; Treasures, no. 8. Nos. 4 and 6 are Bronze Age gold spiral ribbon torcs, and No. 10 is an elaborate flat collar. Taylor has full coverage of British gold Bronze Age material.
- ^
Green, 78?79
- ^
a
b
c
Green, 77
- ^
Gonzalez-Ruibal, "Torcs"
- ^
Green, 45, 74?77
- ^
Iron Age Western Europe from c. 800 B.C. ? La Tene
Archived
2002-10-08 at the
Library of Congress
Web Archives, on the Images from World History Website
- ^
Green, 45?48, 74
- ^
Green, 73
- ^
Laings, 69, 71
- ^
Green, 45, 49, 70
- ^
Key examples of all Irish types are in both Wallace and Treasures; see previous reference for older types, the Iron Age ones are: Treasures nos. 14, 15, 21 and Wallace chapter 4, nos. 3, 4 and 10.
- ^
Laings, 110; Green, 48?49
- ^
Treasures, no. 21; Wallace, 138?153
- ^
Wade, Mike (2009-11-04).
"1m golden hoard rewrites history of ancient Scotland"
.
The Times
. London
. Retrieved
2010-05-25
.
- ^
Gonzalez-Ruibal, "catalogue", fig. 33
- ^
Cicero
,
De Officiis
, III, 31
- ^
Roman Silver Torque with Two Roman Denarii Pendants (late 1st?3rd centuries AD)
, on Ancient Touch Website
- ^
Alberge, Dalya (8 September 2003).
"Golden hoard of Winchester gives up its secret"
.
The Times
. Retrieved
2010-08-02
.
- ^
"Treasure Annual Report 2000"
(PDF)
.
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
. 2001. pp. 16?18, 133. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2012-03-01
. Retrieved
2010-08-02
.
- ^
Vision of Britain: Gerald of Wales, The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, Chapter 2
- ^
Lady Gregory
(2004) [1905].
"The Reign of Bres"
.
Gods and Fighting Men
.
Project Gutenberg
.
- ^
Lebor Gabala Erenn
. Online translation at
www.ancienttexts.org
- ^
Hunter, Frazer, "Celtic Art in Roman Britain", 132-134, in
Rethinking Celtic Art
, ed. Duncan Garrow, 2008, Oxbow Books,
google books
- ^
Laings, 31
- ^
Example found in Northern Ireland in 2013
- ^
Taylor, 63
- ^
Gonzalez-Ruibal covers these in detail in the section "Torcs" and the "catalogue" following. The ancient territory of the
Gallaeci
extended further east along the coast than the modern province, and the linguistic make-up of the region remains controversial.
- ^
British Museum Highlights
Archived
2015-10-18 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"Gallic treasure from Tayac (Gironde): Gold torque and coins | le site officiel du musee d'Aquitaine"
.
References
[
edit
]
- Brailsford, J. W., "The Sedgeford Torc",
The British Museum Quarterly
, Vol. 35, No. 1/4 (Spring, 1971), pp. 16?19,
JSTOR
- Cahill, Mary, "The Dooyork Hoard",
Irish Arts Review
(2002?), Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer, 2002), pp. 118?121,
JSTOR
- Gonzalez-Ruibal, Alfredo, "Artistic Expression and Material Culture in Celtic Gallaecia",
E-Keltoi
, Volume 6,
online
- Green, Miranda,
Celtic Art, Reading the Messages
, 1996, The Everyman Art Library,
ISBN
0297833650
- Laing, Lloyd and Jenifer.
Art of the Celts
, Thames and Hudson, London 1992
ISBN
0-500-20256-7
- Prieto Molina, Susana (1996).
"Los torques castrenos del noroeste de la peninsula iberica"
.
Complutum
.
7
: 195?223.
- "Treasures":
Treasures of early Irish art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.
, an exhibition catalogue from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on torcs (cat. no. 4,6,8,10,14,15,21)
- Taylor, Joan J.,
Bronze Age Goldwork of the British Isles
, 1980, Cambridge University Press,
google books
- Wallace, Patrick F., O'Floinn, Raghnall eds.
Treasures of the National Museum of Ireland: Irish Antiquities
, 2002, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin,
ISBN
0-7171-2829-6