Anglo-Saxon Bronze Long Brooch Collection

Including seven accompanied by Portable Antiquities Scheme records: an incomplete small-long brooch with ring-and-dot ornament; an incomplete small square-headed brooch with headplate featuring zoomorphic mouldings in Salin's Style 1; spindle whorl decorated with vertical striations; an incomplete small Kentish square-headed brooch; fragment of a great square-headed brooch; hooked tag with perforated oval head, Read Class A Type 2; disc brooch decorated with concentric circles and punched dots; together with other miscellaneous artefacts. 240 grams total, 19-45 mm



Found Berkshire, UK. Accompanied by a copies of the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) report nos.BERK-056093, BERK-725B84, BERK-25F9D1, BERK-04DF75, BERK-051CDB, BERK-0605B4, and BERK-05016C.

Of Hines's Group X with two discs on the headplate in a rectangular frame surrounded by a frieze of facing human masks, and another mask placed centrally above the junction with the bow; shallow bow with three ribs; curved horse-head lappets flanking a vertical shank with facing mask detailing, discoid lobes and an inverted mask below; pin-lugs to the reverse and solder-scar where the catchplate was attached. 128 grams, 14 cm



Found near Grimsby, Humberside, UK, circa 2010. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.11899-204377.

The brooch has many of the characteristics of Hines's Group X but also bears a strong resemblance to an unclassified example from Barrington A, Cambridgeshire (Hines, 1997, pl.101). The frieze of facing masks which forms the border to the headplate has echoes of contemporary motifs found on the headplate of the brooch from Fridaythorpe (Hines, 1997, pl.8(b)) and the crests of helmets such as Valsgarde mounds 5 and 7 (Sweden) - see Mortimer, 2011, p.32-35). The inverted mask on the finial echoes the 7th century shield-fitting from Vall, Gotland (Franceschi et al, 2005, pl.209). The significance of the mask motifs has been discussed in the cited works of Franceschi et al and Mortimer. A link to generations of deified ancestors is one possibility.

Comprising: two lead spindle whorls, one biconvex and the other plano-convex; a bronze buckle plate with niello detailing; a fragment of a mount with low-relief knotwork ornament; a bronze strap end with inlaid silver ornament, stylised beast-head finial. 66.2 grams total, 20-46 mm



Acquired on the UK art market. The strap end from Lincolnshire, 1970s. Ex private Merseyside, UK, collection.