Rubers Law

NT51NE 10 5837 1539.

(NT 5837 1539) Roman Bronze Vessels found AD 1863 (NAT)

OS 6" map (1923)

In the year 1863 a workman employed digging field drains on the upper portion of the hill (Ruberslaw) on the south side, discovered a hoard of bronze objects, which were placed in Hawick Museum, and noted by Dr J Anderson and Mr G F Black (1888).

It consists of the handle and rim of a patera or pan; the handle of a bronze ewer decorated with two figure of dwarfs in high relief; the handle of a patera; fragment of a tinned pan; the lower portion of a pan; three similar fragments of varying size; fragment of a rim; another rim; the bottom and portion of the side of a flat bottomed vessel; the fragment of the side of a vessel and portion of the foot; and a small circular rim. The last two portions are probably fragments of the bronze ewer with the handle decorated by two dwarfs.

A O Curle 1905

The collection was first acquired by Sir Walter Elliot of Wolfelee, who exhibited them at Berwick in 1870 to the Berwick Naturalist Club (G S Thomson 1872). He may have presented it to the museum when the collections were housed at the Bacclench Memorial in 1885. He died in 1887; next year this hoard was described by G F Black in his museum report in five lines (J Anderson and G F Black 1888).

G Watson 1948

The hoard of Roman bronze vessels, etc, found on Rubers Law in 1863. (RCAHMS 1956 No.145). (A O Curle 1905; J Curle 1932)

It comprises:--(i) A sauce-pan (patera) with plain ring handle and complete rim (Curle I), associated with a base (Curle 4). (ii) A sauce-pan (patera) with similar handle decorated with a thyrsus (Curle 3), associated with a rim (Curle 10) and base (Curle 5). (iii) A patera base (Curle 6), and rim fragment (unnumbered, above Curle 12); the handle and most of the bowl are missing. (iv) A jug (praefericulum), of which survive the handle (Curle 2), rim (Curle 13), part of the body (Curle 12) and base (Curle 7). (v) A shallow straight-sided dish, with slightly everted rim (Curle 11). (vi) The rim (Curle 9), base (Curle 8) and body of a bowl, about 1 foot in diameter. (Vii) Fragments of two scabbard-mounts (un-numbered, between Curle 6 and 7), one almost complete when joined, the other representing the lower half of a similar object.

As Bosanquet pointed out (R C Bosanquet 1928), the paterae are of later second-century type. So also is the jug-handle, which was decorated with grotesque figures of two dwarfs and a bird. The jug was originally plated and inlaid with silver.

RCAHMS 1956, visited 1945

The Material from the Ruberslaw Hoard is in Hawick Museum (HAKMG 4157) as are '12 iron fragments, 6 incorporating bronze, which may have been found along with the hoard' (HAKMG 4158).

Museum Catalogue 1981