Spectacle (or spiral) fibulae have been found in a large area of Central-Eastern Europe, from Switzerland to the Black Sea, and from Baltic to the Aegean and Southern Italy. The chronological spread is also wide, going from the late Bronze Age to the fifth century B.C. In several types of such fibulae, such as this piece, the two main discs are separated by two loops, making a figure-eight shape in the middle. These brooches would have been formed by beginning in the centre of one spiral and working outward, then creating the second spiral from the outside in.
Spiral patterns, although associated now with the Celtic people, have in one form or another, been used in the art of many cultures worldwide. Appearing on rock art in Britain and Ireland as far back as the Neolithic period, spirals appear to have held important, though now forgotten, meaning with some of the earliest human civilisations. The double spiral is thought to signify balance, no doubt owing to the symmetry of the dual spirals. This symbolism is sometimes further extended, suggesting that the double spiral represents the equinox, when day and night are of equal length and an important time in much of early culture and religion.
