A New Wire Project: Roman/Greek Fibulae

I've been looking for ways to expand the collection of period items I can make, using the materials and tools I have on hand. Anything made of wire, therefore, has been an obvious choice for experimentation. I was browsing around Pinterest and came across an Instructibles tutorial for Roman Fibulae, and it caught my attention. They seemed really simple to make, and I thought they'd be a nice alternative to wire-wrap wrings for largesse and tokens at A&S displays.

The directions call for 16-gauge wire. The closest I had on hand was 18-gauge, silver-plated wire, so I used that. I opted for only four loops instead of five, and I couldn't do the hammering part because my husband was asleep just down the hall (oh, how wonderful it will be to finally move into our house, where I will have a workshop!).

Forming the "catch".

When I finished my first attempt, I had about two inches of wire leftover. Therefore, I cut only a nine inch length for my second attempt. My loops were much closer together on the second fibula, so I *still* wound up with about an inch of excess wire, even though I increased from four loops to five.

First (top) and second fibulae complete.

I still need to file the tips of the pins into points, so that they can piece fabric to be worn.

After I make a handful more of these simple fibula, I want to begin experiments to recreate some (pre-)period extant pieces:

800 B.C. Northern Greece. Harvard Art Museum.

800 B.C. Central Europe.

500 B.C. Halstatt, Austria.

300 B.C. Roman.