PENDANT

Description: A complete gold Latin cross pendant, with runic inscription, dating to the early medieval period (c.AD700-900).

The solid gold cross is of simple form: the long arm is uppermost, with a crude ‘repair’ piercing at the apex; the slight concavity along the upper edge is indicative of a previous worn piercing or attachment, and the terminal has been diagonally filed to ‘finish’ this arm following the repair. Almost the entire length of the arm is filled with an inscription comprising six runes; two parallel scratches to the right of the piercing appear to be an attempt to reinstate to rune removed by the repair. The horizontal arms and basal section or ‘foot’ (perhaps more correctly the vertical beam below/above the crossbeam, depending on view) are each decorated with a single crudely incised equal armed cross (noting that cross on the left arm is somewhat less than ‘equal armed’). The foot protrudes slightly more than the horizontal arms, and is notably bulbous in appearance; all lower terminal edges are rounded. The reverse of the cross is undecorated.

Inscription: ᛖᚫᛞᚱᚢᚠ - ead͡ruf

The general appearance of the cross is quite worn, demonstrated by the loss of the possible attachment and subsequent repair, and by pitting and scratches reverse. 

Dimensions: 26mm long; 16mm wide; 6.5mm arm/shaft width 6.8; 3.26g weight.

Discussion:

This pendant cross is an exceptional and unique object, with few clear parallels and a significant inscription. In order to compile this report a number of specialists and experts were consulted. An initial examination was conducted by Carlos Austin-Gonzalez, who gave two possible translations of the runic inscription as the personal name eadruf (ᛖᚫᛞᚱᚢᚠ) or eadwuf (ᛖᚫᛞᚹᚢᚠ).

A subsequent, and more detailed, examination was undertaken by Professor John Hines (Cardiff University), who kindly prepared the following report:

“This inscribed object is a small gold cross of very simple shape, unusual for Anglo-Saxon England but not unparalleled. By comparison with a similar pendant cross found in Lincolnshire (PAS LIN-75FD54), it probably originally had an attached suspension loop at one end of the longer ‘shaft’ of the cross where there is now a shallow concavity in the edge; the latter, however, also had a separate frame. It is possible that the inscription itself was a secondary addition to an initially plain cross. When the loop was lost, the shaft was perforated for suspension, and the perforation must have been drilled later than the cutting of the runic inscription. There is no independent, contextual or comparative evidence that would suggest a close date for this item or for when it was inscribed. The counterpart from Lincolnshire has a suggested date in the 7th century, but the form of these crosses is markedly different from gold pendant crosses known from datable 7th-century graves.

It seems likely from the width and shape of the cuts that the three incised crosses at the ‘head’ end of the shaft and in either arm were cut at the same time as the runes. Six runes can be identified, reading left to right from the ‘foot’ of the shaft, with the first two drilled through by the wide perforation.

The text reads ead͡ruf. The arc over dr denotes adjacent letters ligatured as a bind-rune. Despite the damage caused by the perforation all of the staves of e are visible, as well as all the by-staves of an āc rune a after it. It is unfortunately unclear if these two runes formed a bind-rune e͡a or were cut separately, in which case the ‘a’ rune must have had a relatively short vertical stave. A pair of thin cut lines visible either side of the perforation might be an attempt to reinstate the vertical stave. It may be significant that we definitely do not is the distinctive Anglo-Saxon diphthong rune e͜a here, the earliest datable example of which is on the Northumbrian Ruthwell Cross of around the mid-8th century; its absence could support the case for a relatively early date, although this cannot be regarded as conclusive dating evidence. The remaining four graphs are absolutely clear.

 Artefacts such as this are quite often inscribed with the personal name of a person with whom the object had been associated (usually to be assumed as the possessor, if nothing else is indicated). Old English personal names beginning Ead- (‘happiness’, ‘fortune’) are common, but the only two known with a second element beginning r- are Eadred and Eadric. No personal-name element ruf can be identified in any Germanic language, and Eadruf would therefore be a hitherto unknown and etymologically mysterious name.

There are, conversely, names in Eard- (‘land’). It is possible that the bind-rune might be taken as a ‘reverse-read’ example, so that d͡r actually represents rd. There are just a few plausible examples of this phenomenon in the Anglo-Frisian corpus (MacLeod 2002, 83–7), although not of this sequence.

 Even if so, the final -uf remains problematic. A contracted form of a common second element after Eard-, -wulf  ‘wolf’, is conceivable. The dropping of the initial w- to -ulf is not at all uncommon in Old English names. (In Old Norse, the assimilation of the w- to the following -u is entirely regular: hence OE wulf, ON ulfr, later úlfr. It is not impossible that this inscription is sufficiently late in date for that to be a source of influence on the form.). A form Æþeluf as a variant of Æþelwulf recorded by Searle (1897, 54) from a charter of c. AD 873 appears to testify to the occasional further simplication of -wulf to -uf, but I have been unable to locate and verify the example cited.

There is also a series of comparable OE names Oba, Uba, Offa, Uffa etc, which appear to be derivable from many sources and to have become confused: words meaning ‘up’, ‘the roof of the mouth’, ‘owl’, and ‘ferocity/menace’ (etymologically, truly the root of the word ‘evil’: OE yfel); and also a pet form of Wulf, i.e. Wuffa (Redin 1919, 73, 101–2, 111–12; Kaufmann 1968, 362, 364). It would, though, be highly exceptional for names of this type to transfer into composite ‘dithematic’ names such as one with Eard- as the first element.

 If the name represented can be inferred to have been Eardwulf, then, the manner of writing it is not just highly unusual, but sufficient challenging to be considered possibly rather cryptic — maybe analogous, in a way, to written forms of names being hidden in monogram rebuses (cf. MacLeod 2002, 97–101). It is to be emphasized, however, that while this identification is possible, it is distinctly problematic and far from certain.”

With regard to the location where the pendant was recovered, Ord Parish (rather ‘East, Middle, and West Orde’) were traditionally located within the Chapelry of Tweedmouth, which in turn was part of the larger group of estates and townships within Islandshire (Raine, 1852, 241). In the early medieval period Islandshire was part of a larger parish that belonged to Lindisfarne, and which subsequently became a detached part of the County Palatine of Durham until it was ceded to the County of Northumberland in the mid-19^th century (ibid; David Petts pers. comm.). Tweedmouth itself may have Romano-British origins: although Bishop (2014, 202) notes that no major site of that date had yet been identified, it is likely that there was a crossing point or bridge here leading to the north along the route of the ‘Devil’s Causeway’ Roman road, probably in the vicinity of the later Parish Church. Whilst this church (and possibly an abbey) was founded in the name of St Boisil (Prior and later Abbot of old Melrose Abbey where he was an associate of St Cuthbert) there are as yet no archaeological remains to substantiate early medieval settlement in Tweedmouth or the adjacent parish of Ord. Nor are there any contemporary finds recorded on the PAS database, with the tenuous exception of a later 10^th century copper-alloy strap fitting or mount (NCL-46C190) found approximately 1.5km to the north-east of the pendant findspot.

The unusual form and composition, the location where it was recovered, and the obvious linguistic significance of the inscription, further highlight the rarity and importance of this cross pendant. Professor Hines has already noted above the closest parallel (2005T136 / LIN-75FD54) to the cross pendant described above (2020T1245 / DUR-B62S57), the record for the former stating that even amongst rare early medieval cross pendants inverted Latin crosses (as opposed to equal armed examples) are even more unusual. This cross is of course notably different from the Lincolnshire example, being solid and of more vernacular form, and different again from the later medieval (c.AD1200-1500) silver pendant in the form of a hollow plain (inverted) cross (2018T299 / NMS-2C7F2A), again found in the south-east of region of England. Examples of Latin Crosses are also seen on the reverse of contemporary coinage, particularly those of King Offa (e.g. KENT-2844F3 and ESS-81F59F), and on the reverse of a number of earlier 7^th century gold tremissis (e.g. HAMP-38D124 and DUR-9B060B). A further copper alloy early medieval Latin cross (c.8^th-11^th century), decorated with enamel infill, was found in Leicestershire in 1990 and recorded on the PAS database some years later (LEIC-0B48C3); it is unclear if this cross may also have been a pendant, although there is a ‘lug’ at the base.

Metallurgical analysis commissioned by the finder found that the cross pendant (2020T1245 / DUR-B62S57) is “12.19 Karat, comprising 50.81% gold (Au), 36.64% silver (Ag), 10.56% copper (Cu), 1.58% iron (Fe)”; further documentary research and analysis facilitating comparison between this object and contemporary precious metal artefacts would be of great interest.

edit 12/02/2022: XRF analysis was undertaken by the Department of Scientific Research, The British Museum, and the follwoing was reported:

"Non-destructive X-ray fluorescence analysis of an Early Medieval gold cross pendant from Ord, Northumberland, indicated a surface composition of approximately 53-55% gold, 36-38% silver, the rest being copper.
There is no visible niello. The cross has been imaged with X-radiography, which also did not show any evidence of niello (Figure 1).
The hole has been punched and encrusted mud is visible in it (Figure 2).
The cross pendant weighs 3.26 grams."

(Figure 1: Radiograph of the cross. The runes are attenuated for the different thickness of metal in this region. There is no evidence of presence of niello.)
(Figure 2: detail of the hole of the cross. Encrusted mud is visible.)

Author: Benjamin Westwood, Finds Liaison Officer for Durham, Darlington & Teesside

Acknowledgements: With thanks to Dr David Petts, Professor John Hines, and Carlos Austin-Gonzalez for their help and assistance in the preparation of this report.

Date: 23/06/2020

References:       

Bishop, M.C., 2014. Secret History of the Roman Roads of Britain. Pen and Sword.

Kaufmann, Henning 1968, Ernst Förstemann Altdeutsche Personennamen Erganzungsband (Munich).

MacLeod, Mindy 2002, Bind-Runes: An Investigation of Ligatures in Runic Epigraphy. Runrön 15 (Uppsala).

Raine, J., 1852. The History and Antiquities of North Durham. J.B. Nichols.

Redin, Mats 1919, Studies on Uncompounded Personal Names in Old English. Uppsala Universitetets Årsskrift (Uppsala).

Searle, W. G. 1897, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (Oxford).