The head of Claudius shown with radiate crown appears to be unique. After his murder with a dish of poisonous mushrooms, he was deified by a decree of the Senate under Nero, who identified himself with the sun-god, and appeared first wearing a radiate crown. The worship of Claudius was adopted with enthusiasm in Britain, centred on his temple at Colchester. It was the building of this temple, dedicated to the conqueror of Britain, which ignited the revolt of the Iceni under Queen Boudicca and led to its destruction. After the rebellion had been quelled, Roman control extended west and north of the Fosse Way. This piece, said to have been found in north-west Britain, was probably made in a major urban centre in Gaul, at Rome or in Asia Minor. (Claudiopolis was in Bithynia. At Aphrodisias a relief from the south portico of the Sebasteion depicts Claudius vanquishing Britannia, cf. Kenan T. Erim, Aphrodisias, London, 1986, p. 117)

It is uncertain from what the piece comes; it might have been from an ala standard, similar to that shown on a tombstone of a signifer of the Ala Petriana found at Hexham, on which the radiate head of an emperor, dated to the second quarter of the 2nd Century A.D. is depicted, cf. G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army, London, 1969, pl. XIVb and p. 148. Later it might have been removed, embedded in lead and inserted into a shrine or temple. Or it might have been made for a shrine into which had been set other busts of deified emperors. Cf. also, C. Vermeule, A Greek theme and its survival, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, CIX, no. 6, 1965, pp. 361-397; J. M. C. Toynbee, Art in Britain under the Romans, Oxford, 1964; G. Webster, The Roman Invasion of Britain, London, 1980 and P. Connolly, The Roman Army, London, 1975, p. 60