Toggles (2001 guide)

Created on by Robert Webley
Last edited on by Robert Webley

Table of Contents

Please note that this guide has not been fundamentally changed from the original print version of the Finds Recording Guide (Geake 2001), written when the database contained just 8,800 non-numismatic records.

Introduction

Toggles have received very little study (see Jackson 1990; nos 83-87).  The ancestral toggle is basically a cylinder with symmetrical mouldings and a short D-shaped loop in the centre of one long edge (e.g. Stead 1991; fig. 46 no. 2; Read 2005, 5-6).  These date to the late Iron Age, while ‘dumbbell’ fasteners are later, Roman objects. 

PAS object type to be used

Use TOGGLE

Date

Most toggles recorded by the PAS date to the Iron Age or early Roman, although later examples may be encountered.  Roman ‘dumbbell’ fasteners date from the late 1st to 3rd century AD.

Examples

Late Iron Age to early Roman toggle (left, HAMP-85188B); Roman 'dumbell' toggle (right, SWYOR-104096). Copyright: Winchester Museums Service; West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service; CC-BY-SA licence)
Late Iron Age to early Roman toggle (left, HAMP-85188B); Roman ‘dumbell’ toggle (right, SWYOR-104096). Copyright: Winchester Museums Service; West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service; CC-BY-SA licence)

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Key references

Jackson 1990

Read 2005