The Traprain Law jug with biblical scenes

Abstract

The Traprain Law Treasure, discovered in 1919, is composed mostly of silver objects cut up and buried in Scotland in the first half of the 5th century AD. Among many fragmentary vessels, a small gilt-silver jug stands out for its principal register of four biblical scenes. Three are easily recognised as Adam and Eve, Moses Striking the Rock, and the Adoration of the Magi. This essay explicates a unique iconographic feature in the Moses episode and proposes a new identification of the fourth scene as the Miracle of the Manna. It then analyses the adjacent, smaller registers that depict pastoral scenes and a grapevine. With its multiple references to eating and drinking, the jug likely provided visual and intellectual stimulation, along with physical and spiritual sustenance, at lavish banquets held somewhere in the Late Roman world in the early 5th century.