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Description: | Gold disc, originally flat, and with an empty rectangular collared setting at its centre, surrounded by four small subsidiary collared settings, each of which contains a round semi-opaque greyish glass cabochon, perhaps intended to imitate pearls. Each collared setting is encircled with beaded wire, as is the outer edge of the disc. From the corners of the central setting, four radiating strips of flattened beaded wire, set edge-on, divide the disc into four segments; within each segment, the glass cabochons are flanked by stylized foliate plant sprays executed in the same edge-on beaded filigree wire. The back of the disc is undecorated; it either originally had a separately attached back plate or was attached directly to some larger object. The disc is bent and distorted, whether by ancient or recent damage is impossible to tell.The disc's function is uncertain, but it is most likely to have come from a brooch, in which case the pin and catch would have been on a missing back plate. An alternative possibility, that it was one of a series of settings on eg a book cover or an altar cross, is less likely. The distinctive type of filigree wire, and the stylized foliate ornament both point to a date in the late 10th or early 11th century, as does the mixture of rectangular and small round settings, the latter often containing pearls, which the pale grey glass cabochons seem to imitate. Foliate filigree of this type can be found on some 10th-century Anglo-Saxon objects, such as the King's School, Canterbury disc brooch; but it is more commonly seen on late 10th- and early 11th-century Ottonian metalwork, such as the Lothair and Mathilde altar crosses. Filigree-enriched round brooches, sometimes set with gems and/or enamel, were produced in both Anglo-Saxon England and Ottonian Germany during the late 10th and first half of the 11th centuries; they are rarer in Anglo-Saxon contexts, but this is as likely to be an accident of survival as a reflection of reality. It is not possible to determine the origin of this piece more closely.Maximum diameter: 23mm; weight: 2.2g. X-ray fluorescence analysis conducted at the British Museum indicated an approximate gold content of 80 per cent.
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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