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Description: | Cast copper-alloy die for making filigree pendants of Hiddensee-Rügen type. The die has a plain, flat back, and three projecting arms together with a head in the form of a cross. Its barrel-shaped head forms part of a heavily stylised bird's head, marked by eyes, a nose, and what may be a bill, pointing towards the body. The cruciform body, perhaps representing a bird's outstretched wings, bears relief ornament consisting of a ring emanating from the bird's neck or bill. The ring is bound by four overlying arms, creating a closed ring-knot motif related to the Scandinavian Borre-style. This object would have been used to create pressed silver or gold sheet appliqués, which were applied to a pendant back-plate and used as a base for filigree and granulation work.Dr Jane Kershaw contributes the following note:This die, together with a lead patrix from York, used to create moulds for similar dies (Roesdahl 1981, YMW 13), suggests the manufacture in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire of highly sophisticated silver or gold jewellery. Related jewellery is normally ascribed to the Hiddensee-Rügen style, named after the gold jewellery hoard discovered in the late 19th century on the island of Hiddensee, off the Baltic coast of Germany. Their distribution extends from Poland to Ukraine, but most examples derive from late 10th-/early11th-century southern Scandinavian hoards (R. Skovmand, 'De danske Skattefund fra Vikingetiden og den Ældeste Middelalder indtil omkring 1150', Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndinghed og Historie (1942), 53).The Swinhope die is one of a small group of recorded objects used in the production of Hiddensee-style cruciform pendants. Their manufacture is attested at Hedeby (Schleswig) by 13 bird-shaped dies (B. Armbruster, 'Goldsmith's Tools at Hedeby', 109-24 in J. Hines, A. Lane and M. Redknap (eds.), Land, Sea and Home. Proceedings of a Conference on Viking-period Settlement, at Cardiff, July 2001, 113, fig. 8). A further die comes from the 'fortress' at Trelleborg (Denmark) (P. Nørlund, Trelleborg (Copenhagen, 1948), pl XXV.5), while a clay mould used to make similar bronze matrices was recently uncovered during excavations at Borgeby in south-west Scania (F. Svanberg, 'Exclusive Jewellery, Borgeby and Western Scania c. AD 950-1050', Fornvännen 93 (1998), fig. 5). These examples provide evidence for the production of Hiddensee-style pendants at high-status sites in areas controlled by the late 10th-century Jelling kings. No finished pendants of the type represented by the Swinhope die are known, either from England or Scandinavia, and the die is smaller and simpler in design than related objects, which can display openwork and complex interlace motifs. The die's closed ring-knot motif is, however, seen on silver Hiddensee-style pendants from the Tolstrup hoard (Denmark) as well as on the York patrix and a corresponding bronze die from Hedeby (H. Eilbracht, Filigran- und Granulationskunst im wikingischen Norden.Untersuchungen zum Transfer frühmittelalterlicher Gold- und Silberschmiedetechniken zwischen dem Kontinent und Nordeuropa, Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalter, Beiheft 11 (1999), taf. 8, nos. 125 and 126; Roesdahl 1981; Armbruster op. cit. in note 3, fig. 8 top left). These parallels confirm its southern Scandinavian character and highlight its significance as an object probably used to create prestige Scandinavian-type pendants in an area of England which, by the late 10th century, had come under the control of the West Saxon kings.
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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