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Description: | Distorted bronze fragment from the foot of a florid cruciform brooch, showing the human mask with surrounding zoomorphic details. The distortion of the metal, apparently the result of heat action, suggests that like other examples from neighbouring Yaxley etc, this is probably derived from a cremation burial in which the ornament passed the fire and consquently became denatured.
The fragment is 38mm wide, 22mm high and 2.5mm thick. Although originally a flat casting, the distortion has rendered it somewhat concave on the upper surface. The reverse is plain. The fragment represents the snapped-off foot of the brooch, and has the human mask at the centre. It has two staring eyes as pellets, with an arching Y between and above for the eyebrows. The nose is shown flat as an almost equilateral triangle descending from the stem of the Y. Below this the mouth is shown as a rectangular block, with an oval hollow in the midst of it. The chin is also shown as a flat expanse which opens out beneath as if to represent a beard. The cheeks are shown as two raised bosses below the eyes, and, from them, striated side-whiskers flow outwards away from the mouth and chin, like the forked beard of a King from a pack of cards. The frame of the eyes and brows appears to occupy a stem of the brooch 12mm wide, which may represent the rising part of the foot. To either side of the eyes and cheeks is a square panel. The swathes of side-whiskers from the cheeks resolve into the (inverted) necks of Style II birds or creatures, with an angled double-bar to the back of the head, a simple eye and bar, and a long rolled beak which is turned upwards and inwards against the outer side of the square panel abutting the sides of the face. This particular face is not closely like any other recorded from Suffolk, though the upturned and everted beaks certainly link it to other examples from north Suffolk. The detail is later simplified and incorporated into 7th century ornament. | Subjects: | Early Anglo-Saxon florid cruciform | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Plunkett, Tom - Portable Antiquities Scheme | Identifier: | http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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