The Mildenhall Bacchic plate
- Gallery: Room 49
- Culture: Romano-British
- Date: 4thC
- Object type: plate
- Materials: silver
- Museum number: 1946,1007.3
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is "The Mildenhall Bacchic Plate," a beautifully crafted silver plate dating to the 4th century. The plate is gently concave, with a polished beaded rim made up of 64 individual beads, and a sturdy circular base.
At the center, a sculpted scene in relief shows two figures from Roman mythology. On the left, a dancing satyr lifts his right arm while turning his gaze toward a robed maenad on the right, who holds a thyrsus and a tambourine. Between them lie cymbals and an animal skin adorned with grapes and fruit, suggesting a celebration of Bacchus, the god of wine.
Smaller objects like a syrinx and a lidded vessel add to the scene. These plates were part of a hoard of silver treasures hidden during a time of instability, and only rediscovered in 1942. The plate's Greek inscription, Eutheriou, suggests it once belonged to a man named Eutherios.
See it in person
The Mildenhall Bacchic plate is on display in Room 49 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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