A diamond-shaped and slightly domed sheet metal strip brooch of Middle Saxon date (c.AD780-820). Traces of gilding survive. The brooch is well-preserved findspot, although the edges are a little 'nibbled' away with a certain amount of bright green 'bronze disease' visible. The brooch is pierced by eight rivet holes which probably held a missing pin attachment. The obtuse angles are both eroded away but the edge of one rivet hole in each of the two angles is still visible (making eight in all). The brooch is divided by plain ribbons arranged in a saltire into four diamond-shaped compartments each containing elements of stylised zoomorphic decoration.
A close parallel is shown in Mills 2001 (68, AS160), unfortunately without provenance. Leslie Webster comments: This is certainly a fine and unusually stylized version of characteristic 8th century animal head volutes, as per my chapter 'The Anglo-Saxon Hinterland: animal style in Southumbrian eighth-century England, with particular reference to metalwork' in Michael Müller-Wille and Lars Olof Larsson (eds.) Tiere: Menschen:Götter - Wikingerzeitliche Kunststile und Ihre Neuzeitliche Rezeption; Veröffentlichen Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft des Wissenschaften Hamburg, vol 90, 2001. There are similar devices on various 8th cent pin heads and the Gandersheim casket metal mounts. Susan Youngs comments: Here the little beast heads with their pricked ears and tongues, which usually develop to encircle the head in a kind of volute have become extremely stylized, so that the encircling coil has become a series of separate circles, and the heads themselves are pretty formulaic. It's interesting that this seems to be a mount, not a brooch, which of course these lozenge-shaped items often are. I wonder if the lower two rivets are actually the remains of an original brooch catch and it has been subsequently adapted as a mount, as the obviously secondary lateral holes suggest? There are several of these lozenge-shaped plates with borders and demarcated fields, some with space at two apexes for holes making them pin links and I think narrower, some fitted as brooches with applied bits or holes for same. This does look from the position of the various holes as though it was used as a decorative mount on box or cover at some point. The animal style is very distinctive indeed against the spirals and finials and I can't place the parallel I have seen for the heads, but not with these 'ears'. Otherwise the broad dividing lines and jaws put this c. 800. But the lines across the heads and the tight spirals are striking and on their own for the moment.
A diamond-shaped and slightly domed sheet metal strip brooch of Middle Saxon date (c.AD780-820). Traces of gilding survive. The brooch is well-preserved findspot, although the edges are a little 'nibbled' away with a certain amount of bright green 'bronze disease' visible. The brooch is pierced by eight rivet holes which probably held a missing pin attachment. The obtuse angles are both eroded away but the edge of one rivet hole in each of the two angles is still visible (making eight in all). The brooch is divided by plain ribbons arranged in a saltire into four diamond-shaped compartments each containing elements of stylised zoomorphic decoration.
A close parallel is shown in Mills 2001 (68, AS160), unfortunately without provenance. Leslie Webster comments: This is certainly a fine and unusually stylized version of characteristic 8th century animal head volutes, as per my chapter 'The Anglo-Saxon Hinterland: animal style in Southumbrian eighth-century England, with particular reference to metalwork' in Michael Müller-Wille and Lars Olof Larsson (eds.) Tiere: Menschen:Götter - Wikingerzeitliche Kunststile und Ihre Neuzeitliche Rezeption; Veröffentlichen Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft des Wissenschaften Hamburg, vol 90, 2001. There are similar devices on various 8th cent pin heads and the Gandersheim casket metal mounts. Susan Youngs comments: Here the little beast heads with their pricked ears and tongues, which usually develop to encircle the head in a kind of volute have become extremely stylized, so that the encircling coil has become a series of separate circles, and the heads themselves are pretty formulaic. It's interesting that this seems to be a mount, not a brooch, which of course these lozenge-shaped items often are. I wonder if the lower two rivets are actually the remains of an original brooch catch and it has been subsequently adapted as a mount, as the obviously secondary lateral holes suggest? There are several of these lozenge-shaped plates with borders and demarcated fields, some with space at two apexes for holes making them pin links and I think narrower, some fitted as brooches with applied bits or holes for same. This does look from the position of the various holes as though it was used as a decorative mount on box or cover at some point. The animal style is very distinctive indeed against the spirals and finials and I can't place the parallel I have seen for the heads, but not with these 'ears'. Otherwise the broad dividing lines and jaws put this c. 800. But the lines across the heads and the tight spirals are striking and on their own for the moment.
Not included in Weetch 2013, because until 2017 it was recorded as a mount.
A RDF representation of SUR-47F8A7
2009-07-20T15:41:18+01:00
2018-02-02T12:47:23+00:00
SUR-47F8A7
SUR-47F8A7
GB
en-GB
The Trustees of the British Museum
The Trustees of the British Museum
1
http://purl.org/NET/Claros/vocab#Thumbnail
Attribute as courtesy of the British Museum
A thumbnail image of SUR-47F8A7
With Northmberland Estates in Alnwick.
Copper alloy
Primary material of object
Incomplete
42.47
Width
67.87
Length
1.3
Thickness
13.64
Weight
By Attribution 3.0
The period from for the object
Attribute as courtesy of the British Museum
A full resolution image of SUR-47F8A7
0780
0820
Classification of object
Ascribed culture
The surface treatment of the object