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Description: | Description: Early Anglo-Saxon gold disc pendant decorated with applied filigree beading. It is circular, flat, and decorated with a very worn beaded-wire border around the edge.Just off centre is a damaged setting for a gem consisting of an upright gold strip collar, perhaps originally lozengiform or cross-shaped, and now with rounded corners and slightly incurved sides. The gem is missing. Four radiating arms project from the central setting, each made up of two very worn beaded wires (now 0.4mm in diameter) enclosing S-shaped beaded-wire motifs, all but one motif (the upper motif of the lower arm) being a reversed-S. The wire making up these S shapes is just 0.2-0.3mm in diameter. The arms are of slightly unequal lengths due to the off-centre placing of the central setting; one arm (the right-hand or 2 o'clock arm) contains an extra anti-clockwise scroll. The arms together form a cross, with the arms at 2 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 8 o'clock and 11 o'clock.An inner border is interrupted by the ends of the cross arms. It consists of a ring of beaded-wire semi-circles with inward coiled terminals, forming C shapes. There are four in the upper quarters, five in the lower left quarter and four-and-a-half in the lower right quarter; the wire is 0.2-0.3mm in diameter. A curved length of very worn beaded wire 0.4mm in diameter, runs around the inner edge of the row of scrolls and is also interrupted by the cross arms.The outer beaded wire is 0.6mm in diameter. It is cut away along a short area at 12 o'clock, and here the suspension loop has been added. It is made from a separate piece of gold sheet decorated with five longitudinal ridges which extend over the reverse of the loop as well. It is probably attached to the pendant with solder.The reverse of the pendant is undecorated, and now slightly scratched and battered. The backplate has come away slightly from the outer border in one place, and can be measured here as 0.5mm thick.Dimensions: diameter 22mm, weight 2.51g.Discussion and Date: This pendant fits well into a range of early Anglo-Saxon gold disc pendants with remarkably diverse filigree decoration, often with central gem settings. On the PAS database, compare NMS-4198A8, NMS-515C15, ESS-450B96, SF-B6EFA1 and NLM5404. They date to the second half of the 7th century AD, the latest date being provided by their inclusion in Boss Hall grave 93, which also contained a Series B sceatta (Geake 1997, 38; Webster and Backhouse 1991, no. 33). The designs often incorporate a cross.
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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