BROOCH

A cast copper alloy gilded Anglo-Saxon saucer brooch dating from the 5th - 6th centuries AD. The brooch is incomplete, retaining about two-thirds of the complete object. The catch plate and pin are missing, while part of the pin mount survives.

The relief-cast decoration consists of a panel of four anti-clockwise animals in Salin's Style I, only three now visible in the surviving part of the brooch. Each animal comprises a profile, 'helmeted', head-surround with coiled nape at the neck, an eye, two cheek bars and a leg with clawed foot, bent up behind the back of the head. This design is surrounded by a nicked border ring and a flange decorated with punched triangles. A cast circular disc-headed stud is riveted through the centre of the brooch, partly obscuring the decoration underneath; on the reverse, the rivet lies flush with the surface of the brooch.

Saucer brooches were particularly popular in the Upper Thames region and adjacent districts during the 5th and 6th centuries, and were probably manufactured there. This particular brooch may date from the earlier 6^th century on the grounds of its Style I animal design. Less well produced examples of the main design are known from Gussage St Michael, Dorset (see Green, M. 2000: A Landscape Revealed: 10,000 Years on a Chalkland Farm (Tempus: Stroud), 139 and fig. 102a) and Alveston Manor (context 169 from ditch but probably from grave 2002/3, excavated by Warwickshire Museum Services). A similar design but with three animals is represented by a brooch from Kempston, Beds. (British Museum, Prehistory and Europe, 91,6-24,246) and another brooch on this database (WILT-E02833). The inserted disc-headed stud is unusual, however: while they occur on applied saucer brooches, most cast saucer brooches, including the parallels given here, have an integral central low boss or flat disc or sometimes an inlay or hole. Interestingly, among the rare parallels on cast saucer brooches is the brooch from Upton, Camb. (Dickinson, T. M. 1993: 'Early Anglo-Saxon saucer brooches: a preliminary overview', in W. Filmer-Sankey (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 6, fig. 39), the fine Style I of which seems to be a significant precursor for a number of zoomorphic designs on saucer brooches, including this example from Fyfield Wick.