PIN

A Middle Bronze Age dress pin, known as a Picardy Pin, dating from 1400 BC - 1250 BC. The head of the pin expands to a disc and has a hollow terminal that would have held a stone. Immediately behind the head, the shaft narrows to 4.3mm diameter before expanding into a swollen area with a maximum diameter of 6.34mm diameter. The shaft then tapers again to the well patinated break.

The whole of the surviving shaft is decorated, though the surface layer of the pin is missing in places. below the expanded head are five circumferential grooves, then a panel of longitudinal diagonal lines form chevrons. the thickest part of the swelling is decorated with diagonal cross hatching, flanked on each side by another five circumferential grooves. The lower shaft is more damaged, but appears to be another panel of diagonal cross hatching and another band of circumferential lines.

The metal is dark grey with areas of dark green where the surface is missing.

This is a large and highly decorative rare item that would be worn with the intention of display, most likely used on an external garment such as a cloak or something similar. There are only 13 others recorded on the PAS database (February 2014). Compare GLO-439E61, DOR-CF4B74, NMS-35C944, BERK-2E4E35 and FASW-5C5522.

FASW-5C5522 notes that these pins 'Represent a valuable addition to the small dataset found in Britain and elsewhere in the north European Plain. These pins are mostly, but not always decorated and may be perforated or looped or neither and share common features such as the shape of the head, the swelling of the neck and decoration in the form of incised linear motifs. They occur within the 'Ornament horizon' phase of the late Taunton or early Penard phase of the later mid Bronze Age, approximately 1400-1250 BC'."