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Description: | Complete cast copper alloy ?Bracteate? die. The die is circular in plan and flat in section. It is 27.32mm in diameter, 2,72mm thick and weighs 9.9g. There is some chipping of the surface at the edge, but the edge is otherwise intact and complete. The obverse of the die has a negative design of an intertwined beast, though the design is somewhat garbled and the animal?s head is not visible. The reverse of the die is plain. The object has a mostly even dark green patina, but is lighter green (on the original surface) around the design, perhaps due to use and/or abrasion. There is one small patch of lighter green to the reverse, again on the original surface.
Dr Morten Axboe of the National Museum, Copenhagen kindly studied images of the die and compared it with known struck bracteates. Not only was he able to determine that the animal design makes this a die for a type D-bracteate, he confirmed that it was a previously unknown design.
A bracteate is a very thin sheet metal one sided coin on which the reverse bears the negative impression of the face. The name comes from the Latin bractea: a thin metal plate. Bracteate coins were issued in early medieval Germany, but not in this country. The die reported here was not used for coins, but for producing thin gold sheets for pendants. | Format: | text/html | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ | Publisher: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Rights holder: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Subjects: | archaeology | Temporal: | 400
1066 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Caroline McDonald | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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