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Date: |
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Description: | A great square-headed brooch dating to the sixth century AD. The brooch is in three pieces, one comprising the frame of the headplate and bow, another the footplate's terminal lobe, and the final one the decorative facing from the left-hand side of the headplate.In all, most of the original brooch is present, and, based on the relative dimensions of the remaining fragments, one can discern that the rectangular headplate's upper corners must have protruded slightly from the upper body of the brooch.The headplate itself would have displayed intricate decoration, with a wide, linear border, demarcating the edges of a field of interlace ornament. The upper corner has an elaborate, projecting terminal. The bow is straight, with a pair of small, rectangular transverse projections. Only traces of original ornament now remain. The footplate frame is large, and markedly plano-convex in profile, such that its lower edge is crescentic, but its decorative surface is now lost. There are two long, rectilinear lugs on the brooch's reverse, but the pin is now lost. The entire brooch would have a total length of 74.3mm. The greatest width of any fragment (the decorative headplate fragment) has a width of 36.8mm, and the brooch's thickness was 5.2g. The combined weight of the three fragments is 37.9g.Helen Geake writes: The image attached to this record shows the foot from an early Anglo-Saxon cruciform brooch in two pieces. The upper piece consists of a flat panel with a line of punched ring-and-dot motifs running down either edge, and a lappet extending from either side. Below this is a half-round moulding decorated with horizontal grooves, and then the horse-head terminal. This is worn and corroded and details are hard to see, but a longitudinal ridge is clear between two round eyes. This ridge runs down to a raised square panel which appears to have a border of double-triangle punchmarks. To either side of this raised square is a pair of projections, perhaps nostrils, which appear to curve upwards to meet the downward curve of the lappets. The fragment is then broken at the point where a fan-shaped or crescentic terminal extends downwards. This terminal appears to have a border of ring-and-dot motifs.It is not easy to reconcile this image with the original description.
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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