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Description: | An early Anglo-Saxon openwork circular gold pendant with a four-spiral swastika-type or tetraskele pattern in the center. The swastika appears to have been stamped from a single piece of gold sheet. It is an equilateral cross with four arms all bent round on themselves anti-clockwise to create spirals. This central design is surrounded by three concentric circles formed by a single beaded wir, now quite worn, spiralling round; this is in turn surrounded by a separate wire, similarly beaded but now extremely worn, creating the outer ring. A corrugated loop with three grooves and four ridges has been soldered on, covering the outer beaded wire; the loop is 5.3mm long and 3.1mm wide. The pendant is 16.3mm in diameter 1.1mm thick and weighs 2.90 grams.Similar openwork beaded-wire pendants are known, mainly from Kent and East Anglia. Examples from graves include Gilton grave 27, Chartham Down K Barrow A, Buckland Dover grave 391B and Faversham (Ashmolean Catalogue 25.1), all in Kent, as well as Harford Farm grave 28, Norfolk; examples on the PAS database include KENT-F5A964, KENT-D23D23, SF-0646A8 and SWYOR-2D4FA7 (2000T646; found in North Yorkshire). At Chartham and Gilton they were combined in the grave with keystone and plated disc brooches, and so can be dated to the very end of the sixth century and the very start of the seventh. They may continue in use until the end of the seventh century.The tetraskele device, or curly swastika, occurs on many artefact types of the early Anglo-Saxon period, including great square-headed brooches (e.g. SF-6A9565, NCL-7298A8), wrist-clasps (e.g. NMS-FB03F7) and mounts (e.g. SUSS-CC0C77).
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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