BROOCH

Early Medieval brooch; Cast copper alloy, Anglo-Saxon, cruciform brooch with extensive gilding and the remains of applied silver sheet. Dated to the late 6th century by its elaborate design and the use of the Bichrome Style. Top- and side-knobs cast with the brooch and the whole flattened in cross-section. Each knob is broadly rectangular with pointed extensions on either side around the middle of the knob. The three knobs each take the form of a face mask with prominent eyes, cheek-bones and curls out to the sides of the eyes suggesting ears or moustaches (these curls form the extensions to the sides of the knobs). The collar between each knob and the head-plate is decorated with a hatched band and a line of punched dots. The head-plate is roughly square with a continuous band of hatched decoration around the sides and top, then a line of punched dots surrounding the central abstract square design. The line of dots continues down along both sides of the bow, tapering in towards the middle at the central stud then flaring out towards the edges again. It then continues down around the sides and bottom of the design in the field below the bow. The arched bow has a rectangular stud in relief in its centre. The field below the bow is rectangular and decorated with a rectangular design of horizontal lines with pellets to its right-hand side. This is surrounded by the dotted line mentioned above. The field has a narrow, rectangular lappet to either side, with a plain collar joining the lappet to the brooch. The foot is incomplete, the bottom section having been broken away. The remaining section shows another face mask, of a different design to those at the knobs. The whole front of the brooch has remains of gilding picking out the decoration. The panels at the ends of each of the top- and side-knobs are flat and undecorated, the top one having the remains of an appliqué of sheet silver. It is presumed that the whole of these undecorated sections would have been similarly applied, thus giving the distinctive Bichrome Style (cf. the pendant in similar style recorded under database reference number SOMDOR-A8DD87) The back of the brooch is flat and undecorated with the remains of the pin hinge around the centre of the head-plate and the small catch-plate still present between the lappets below the bow. The catch-plate continues with a cast ridge running down the foot of the brooch, over to the left-hand side. The area near the foot has been bent out, curving up towards the front. The dating is taken from the information of the Bichrome Style (mid-late 6th century) and the rough chronology in MacGregor and Bolick (see ref link below) which states that the elaborate designs with the thin, flattened knobs and bow date to the late 6th and 7th centuries. Length 134.35mm, width (at side-knobs) 85.05mm, width (at lappets) 44.94mm, thickness 3.09mm, weight 123.4g