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Details
LOT 0362
Pre-Viking Bronze Openwork Pendant with Bound Figure and Dragons
CIRCA 6TH-10TH CENTURY A.D.
4 1/4 in. (83.77 grams, 10.7 cm).
Openwork Zierscheibe with triple-band ring surrounding a facing female figure with flexed arms, annulets and arcs flanking her body, annulets to the outer rim of the enclosing ring, suspension loop above flanked by addorsed beasts. [No Reserve]
Provenance
From the private collection of a London gentleman, from his grandfather's collection formed before the early 1970s.
Literature
Cf. similar from the cemetery at Crailsheim - Ingersheim (Grave 9), now in the Landesmuseum Württemberg in Stuttgart; published in Betz, G.C. (1864) “Die Grabhügel und Reihengräber im Oberamtsbezirk Crailsheim”, Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für das Württembergische Franken, 6(3), pp.472-479.
Footnotes
These openwork discs are often found at the waist and may have formed an ornamental lid to a belt-pouch.
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LOT 0362
Pre-Viking Bronze Openwork Pendant with Bound Figure and Dragons
Sold for (Inc. bp): £416
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Pendants in the form of miniature buckets have been found in a number of pagan Anglo-Saxon and Viking contexts and are generally made of bronze or iron, with gold examples being rare; three gold examples were found with the hoard from Hoen, Norway. Bronze bucket amulets have been found at Driffield in Yorkshire, and Vimose bog in Denmark, among other places. In form they represent wooden buckets bound with bronze or iron bands which have been found in Anglo-Saxon and Viking graves and are believed to have held mead or ale and were used to replenish the cups from which warriors drank. As amulets they probably represent the ecstatic power of alcoholic drink and the role of women as the dispensers of these precious beverages.
