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Description: | Gilded copper-alloy object in the form of a human face with an off-centre piercing. The head has a rounded hat or helmet at the top, with two deep curving eyebrow-like grooves; a triangular lock of hair ending in an outward curl projects downwards from either side. The locks of hair are each decorated or emphasised by a triangular groove. Between the locks of hair are two large pellet eyes, each surrounded by a circular groove and ridge. There are hemispherical bulging cheeks below and a well modelled three-dimensional nose between. Below the nose is a pair of little circles, from which a triple-strand moustache develops, each half of which ends in an outward-curling scroll. At the bottom is a broad flat undecorated triangular plate. The circular perforation pierces the object at the top of the nose, just off-centre and so over one eye. The gilding is most noticeable in the grooves, and may be absent altogether from the triangular panel. It measures 30 wide x 40 mm long.The Style I decoration on the object dates it to the sixth century. It is possible that the apparently ungilded triangular panel may originally have had a silver plating or coating, and if so it would be in the 'Bichrome Style'. This was until recently thought to date from c. 530-570 AD, but more recent work has extended this to the whole of the 6th century.The identification of the object is uncertain. It is unlikely to be a knob from a 'Florid' cruciform brooch. These were sometimes made separately and attached to the main body of the brooch, but they normally tend to have a pair of small loops on their backs, and this particular object does not.A more likely possibility is that it is a 'spangle' or small pendant from a pin head or from the foot of a cruciform brooch. A very similar example comes from Sleaford, Lincolnshire, now in the British Museum; and another is from Sheffield's Hill, now in North Lincolnshire Museum. An example of a pin with spangles, but this time the more common triangular form, can be seen on the PAS database at LIN-345673.An alternative is that it is a bell-shaped pendant which has lost its suspension loop and has been given a secondary perforation. This pendant type is thought perhaps to be a horse-harness decoration. Other examples on the PAS database include SOMDOR-A8DD87, HAMP3442, KENT-CC59C7 and SUR-6FBE75; other examples are known from Baginton, Warwickshire; Worthy Park, Hampshire; Chessell Down, Isle of Wight; Barrington A, Cambridgeshire; and Brighthampton, Oxfordshire. The last two are in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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