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Description: | Silver Gilt Pendant. Circular cast pendant with top loop for suspended wear. The display face bears a relief depiction of the Norse god Odin and his attendant ravens, Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory). Odin is rendered in a markedly skeletal style with a skull-like face and thin arms which clasp the birds to his breast; despite this, his blind eye is distinguished from the sighted. The birds have long necks and large eyes, each has its bill to Odin's ear as they inform him of their discoveries. The feathers of the birds' wings are rendered as angled strokes which deliberately resemble the ribs of a skeleton. The suspension loop bears a rectangular sunken panel occupied by four horizontal bars on its display side.The back is ungilded and plain, with scratches which are especially prominent to the centre and right. These may mask several lightly incised runes, situated behind an area centred at 8 O'clock on the obverse side of the pendant.The finder kindly supplies a number of close parallels culled from the internet, which establish the wide currency of this subject group. These include numerous examples from Russia and Sweden, including some of silver gilt. The pendant proudly proclaims a militant paganism. The tripartite grouping may represent a deliberately offensive pastiche of the Christian Trinity; Kevin Leahy kindly notes that the Thors' hammer pendant design may similarly have been seen to invert the Cross worn by Christian believers. Odin's initiatory ordeal of hanging for three days and nights on a tree was a further aspect of his biography which may parody the Crucifixion story. The composition appears to entail further layers of visual ambiguity in that the birds could also represent shields, symbolising Odin's role as the gatherer of those slain in battle, while the extent of their wings may recall the 'blood eagle', a spectacular form of ritual mutilation whereby the victim's ribcage would be severed from the sternum and spread out - or spreadeagled. Suggested date: Early Medieval, 900-1000.Height: 23.1mm, Diameter: 18.1mm, Thickness (pendant): 1.6mm, Weight: 3.74gms.In view of its age and material this object is to be submitted to the Treasure process, Reference TBC.
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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