EARLY MEDIEVAL BROOCH

450

An incomplete Early-Medieval (early Anglo-Saxon) cast gilded copper-alloy miniature bow brooch (c. 450-c. 550). The lower part and the pin are missing.The head is semi-circular and on the front is a chip carved design with a raised zig-zag forming slightly arched chevrons. A knop at the apex has two small circular recesses, and there is a small flat undecorated knop at the lower right-hand corner. It is assumed that there would have been a similar knop at the opposite corner. On the reverse of the headplate, a single pin lug is largely obscured by a corroded iron deposit, the remains of a spring and pin.Below the head, the brooch narrows to the bow. This tapers to a point at either end, and has a raised lozenge-shaped area in the centre where the gilding has worn away. On the reverse, the base of the bow has an almost complete catch-plate, 'D'-shaped in side view. A tiny stub of footplate survives to the lower left of the bow, with a groove parallel to the tapering edge of the bow.The front is gilded and the rear has a mid-green patina. The break is abraded. Height: 24.7mm; width: 17.8mm; thickness: 6.1mm. Weight: 3.20g.Barry Ager, Curator, The British Museum, has commented: Although the foot-plate is rather narrow at the break, it appears that a fair bit has been lost from that end and I think your comparison with the brooch in Arnold is entirely justified, especially in view of the decoration of the head-plate. I usually call them small, or miniature bow brooches rather than radiate-headed brooches to differentiate them from the Frankish types, although that's just personal preference. There are not all that many recorded examples of the Westover form, but others come mainly from Kent, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, e.g. from Bifrons, Harham Hill, and Mill Hill, gr. 102, and there are others from Mucking, Grubenhaus 135, and Grimston, Norfolk. Closer to home are the plain fragments with similar head-plates you'll recall sending me details of in the past from near Chessell (IOW2005-90-13) and Plaish Farm (IOW2011-4-454). There is one from Nouvion-en-Ponthieu, northern France, which is presumably an Anglo-Saxon 'export'. They appear to be related to a Frankish version with a semi-circular head and basically triangular foot (Bulles-Lauriacum type), which occur mostly in northern France, the Rhineland and south-western Germany date mainly from the later 5th century, although the English finds may last into the early 6th (A. Koch, Bügelfibeln der Merowingerzeit im westlichen Frankenreich, Mainz, 157-162, Taf. 26, 1-3, Karte 14).