Early metallic artefacts of adornment in Portugal

Abstract

This article aims to define the cultural context of a set of metallic artefacts of adornment related to the early presence of 'Barbarian' people in Portugal, more specifically, from the last decades of the 4th century until the beginning of the 6th. The adornments, made of gold and bronze and mainly worn over costume, were recovered from several sites, with different chronological and cultural contexts. The analysis and interpretation developed in this text attempt to sort the artefacts according to a typology, in order to discuss their affiliation and chronology. In the process, a comparison is made between the Portuguese artefacts and those from wellknown sites, namely burial sites located in the Danubian area or in the Spanish territory.