BROOCH

An incomplete cast, white-metal coated copper-alloy early-medieval Frankish S-shaped brooch with bird-head terminals, late c.5th-6th century.

The brooch is S-shaped and formed of two conjoined predatory birds' heads in profile. divided by a bar decorated with a relief border. From each end of the bar, linked to the ends of the birds' beaks, is a curved tapering projection, probably representing the birds' legs or talons. These projections have a sunken triangular centre at their wider base, and a pair of very fine grooves across as they taper to a point.

Each bird is nearly identical, with curved beak, teardrop eye, angled headframe, wide cheeks and small s-shaped talon. The bird on the head of the brooch has a beak decorated with a zig-zag relief line within a relief border; the bird on the foot has a simpler curving ridge in the centre of its beak.

The bodies are decorated with four longitudinal ridges, alternately zig-zag (probably indicating feathers) and plain.

The reverse of the brooch is undecorated, with a single pin bar lug on the reverse of the head and a catchplate on the reverse of the foot. Both are parallel to the line of the (missing) pin. There is iron corrosion around the pin bar lug.

The brooch is a light turquoise colour with evidence of white-metal coating, probably tin, across the surface. This survives best on the larger flat surfaces of the heads, and it is possible that it was originally restricted to these areas.

36.64mm long, 26.74mm wide, 8.47mm thick and 5.27g in weight.

This is an unusual form of S-shaped brooch and no parallel has yet been found. It may be an import.