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Description: | Copper-alloy S-shaped brooch, small and with relatively simple decoration. The brooch is relatively flat, and solid with no perforations or openwork. It is decorated with two grooves each close to an edge, resulting in a central broad flat-topped ridge flanked by a narrower ridge to either side. At each end is an animal head seen in profile, with a circular groove forming an eye and an open beak or mouth. The lower jaw is curled backwards, and the upper jaw is long and gently curving upwards to meet the edge of the central straight part of the S. One of the heads is very slightly miscast so that the curl of the lower jaw is indistinct. There are oblique parallel file marks visible across the whole of the front of the brooch. On the reverse are two lugs set longitudinally. One is slightly longer than the other and has a deliberately made curl with filemarks visible; the other (behind the slightly miscast head)is slightly shorter, and has a slightly bent top which looks more like accidental damage than a deliberate curl. The former was presumably intended as a catchplate, and the latter as a pin lug, although there it has no drilled hole to attach a pin or pin bar. A very slight raised band joins the two lugs and hints of filemarks are visible here too.The brooch measures 27 x 11 mm, and is a maximum of 2 mm thick without the lugs and 8 mm thick including the catchplate lug.The brooch appears to be unfinished, due to the lack of a hole for a pin, but it is not fresh from the mould as filemarks have been added and the catchplate has been turned over.An article on S-shaped brooches published in 1968 illustrates a number of small ones similar to this example. By far the closest is one from Lyminge in Kent, which is 26 mm long and which has similar animal heads as well as two grooves running the length of the brooch. The Lyminge example also has transverse nicks added across the outer ridges. Another even plainer example comes from grave 69 at Chessell Down on the Isle of Wight. These small brooches can be readily paralleled on the Continent and it was suggested in 1968 that they were Frankish imports. In view of this, the reported findspot ('north of England') seems unusual, although there is a report of an S-shaped brooch having been found at Binchester in County Durham (MacGregor and Bolick 1993, 153; no source stated). Early Anglo-Saxon, 5th or 6th century.
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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