Details

LOT 0302

'Museum Displayed' Anglo-Scandinavian Viking 'The Brinton' Gold Bracteate

LATER 5TH-EARLY 6TH CENTURY A.D.

1 1/4 in. (2.77 grams, 31 mm).

A sheet-gold bracteate of hybrid type A / C with repoussé design depicting a large profile male head with elaborate hairstyle terminating in a bird's head placed above a quadruped with legs extended and a partial row of pellets, all enclosed within a border of stamped 'horseshoe' motifs; applied beaded wire rim; loop lost in antiquity.

Provenance

Discovered whilst searching with a metal detector in 1996 on the vendor's farm in Brinton, North Norfolk, not too far from the subsequently discovered bracteate horde at Binham. Previously on loan to Norwich Castle Museum, on display for 15 years.
Accompanied by various correspondence concerning the loan to the Museum and the Sutton Hoo exhibition from March to September 2008.
Accompanied by a copy of the Norwich Heritage Explorer report number 32044.
Accompanied by a copy of the 'The Bracteate Hoard from Binham - An Early Anglo-Saxon Central Place?' By Charlotte Behr and Tim Pestell with a contribution by John Hines.
Accompanied by a copy of the museum drawing and subsequent professional drawing by Julia Garrett.
Accompanied by a specialist report by Anglo-Saxon and Viking specialist Stephen Pollington.
The only bracteate from Norfolk that Norwich Castle Museum does not own.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no. 114447-194311.

Published

Behr, C., New Bracteate Finds From Early Anglo-Saxon England, IIn Medieval Archaeology, Vol. LIV, 2010.

Literature

See Axboe, M., Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit — Herstellungsprobleme und Chronologie, RGA 2004; Behr, C., New Bracteate Finds From Early Anglo-Saxon England, in Medieval Archaeology, Vol. LIV, 2010, for discussion of this find.

CONDITION