BROOCH

Unusual object which appears to be an annular brooch. Four sides of an originally hexagonal frame survive, with a D-shaped cross-section; internally the brooch is circular. In the centre of one side is a projecting human head modelled in the round, with hair cut in a square shape to frame the face. The features are strongly and severely modelled, with big relief eyebrows meeting the top of the flattish triangular nose, lower-relief eyes, cheeks and chin, and a line for the mouth. A short neck connects the head to the frame of the brooch, which resembles stylised shoulders and angled arms. At one 'elbow' is a broken pin constriction. The opposite 'elbow' has no corresponding pin rest. Beyond this corner, the frame narrows to the next. Here the frame has broken at a bifurcation, perhaps originally a small loop, which looks a little like a hand. A plausible reconstruction has each 'hand' holding a bar which completes the frame, but no parallel has been found to check this. All breaks are old and worn.