The Frasnes Hoard was accidentally unearthed in 1864 by foresters digging out the roots of a tree near

Frasnes-lez-Buissenal Frasnes-lez-Buissenal is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Frasnes-lez-Anvaing, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a ...

in Hainaut, Belgium. The torcs and some other pieces are now in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York. Along with at least eighty uninscribed coins of types often found in Gaul and Britain and associated with the Belgic tribes of Morini and Nervii, which were dated by John Evans to ca. 80 BC, the

hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...

discovered at Frasnes also contained two characteristically Gallic Late La Tène style gold torcs, one plain with flattened-ball terminals, the other with repoussé decoration of a frontal bull's head among raised facetted scrolls some of which manifested a design repertory comparable to finds in Britain. The torc was constructed of sheet gold over an iron ring wrapped in a hard cement. There was also a ring "nearly 1⅝ inches in diameter",Evans 1864:97 too large in diameter to be a finger ring, yet too small to be a bracelet or armband; it had continuous granular ornament of globules of gold soldered together round into outer face.

Notes

{{reflist, 2 Treasure troves of Belgium Ancient Celtic metalwork Prehistoric sites in Belgium Torcs Metalwork of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Belgium–United States relations