This cast bronze figure of an eagle was found in the Basilica of the Roman town of Calleva, near Silchester, on the 9th October 1866 during excavations being undertaken by Rev. J.G.Joyce. The bird is posed with its wings outstretched, its head raised and turned to the right. The original wings are missing but it is clear, from the careful modeling of the feathers beneath them, that they must have been extended and raised. In 1962 Jocelyn Toynbee described the eagle as ‘by far the most superbly naturalistic rendering of any bird or beast as yet yielded by Roman Britain’.