|
Date: |
|
Description: | A gilded cast copper alloy bell-shaped openwork pendant of sixth century date. The pendant has a vertical line of symmetry and measures 51.44mm in length, 40.2mm in width and 3.45mm in thickness. It weighs 19.09g.
The upper section is gilded and is decorated with two symmetrical beasts in Salin's animal style I, each looking downwards with widely gaping double-strand jaws, which scroll outwards at the ends. The upper jaws are particularly tightly scrolled, with two complete turns. Each animal has a raised circular eye with a central dot contained within an angled double-strand headframe, with a curved double-strand line below. The back of the neck is a wider flat band, decorated with a line of ring-and-dot motifs. The rest of the flaring necks are filled with Style I animal ornament; each neck has single animal in profile, with its head towards the centre of the pendant and turned back to look over the animal's back. The body appears to be crossed at each hip (front and rear) by a double-strand band. Each leg ends in a four-toed foot and the front leg is raised towards the head. The necks are divided by a raised band with more ring-and-dot stamps, which ends in a raised transverse rectangle decorated with longitudinal grooves.
The lower part of the pendant is covered in the remains of the mid grey solder which would once have held in place a sheet of silver foil (appliqu??). This use of silver appliqu?? on otherwise gilded objects is called Bichrome style. The lower section is in the form of an isoceles triangle, 40.2mm wide by 23.99mm high; the two upper sides have a slight concave curve and the third side is straight and horizontal.
At some point the original means of suspending the pendant has been broken and there is some wear evident in this area. The object was mended in antiquity by rivetting a cylindrical loop (6.35mm in length and 4.5mm in diameter) with two triangular plates below onto the back. The rivet perforates the decoration in the centre of the upper part of the pendant.
Kevin Leahy (pers. comm.) has excavated a similar pendant from the Sheffield's Hill cemetery, North Lincolnshire. Other early-medieval bell-shaped pendants on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database include SUR-6FBE75 and HAMP3442. Another parallel can be found in collections of the Ashmolean Museum (MacGregor and Bolick 1993, pp. 162-3, no. 25.6). This example is from Suffolk and is smaller but otherwise similar, with downward-pointing animal heads and the probable site of an appliqu??. | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Payne, Naomi - Portable Antiquities Scheme | Identifier: | http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
|
More Like this...
-
PENDANT
A gilded cast copper alloy…
-
die
Complete copper alloy die, used…
-
Brooch
A gilded copper-alloy disc brooch…
-
Chatelaine
A cast copper-alloy early-medieval chatelaine…
-
Knife
An incomplete copper-alloy knife handle…
-
Brooch
Early Medieval (Anglo-Saxon, circa 450…
-
-
-
Mount
An incomplete gilded copper-alloy probable…
-
|