Details

LOT 0334

Pre-Viking Gold Aroma Bucket Pendant

4TH-7TH CENTURY A.D.

3/4 in. (1.28 grams, 19 mm).

Miniature drum-shaped vessel with strap handle, beaded wire bands to the bottom and sidewall, polished red stone insert to the base. [No Reserve]

Provenance

From the private collection of a London gentleman, from his grandfather's collection formed before the early 1970s.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Literature

See Khrapunov, I. & Stylegar, F.A., Inter Ambo Maria, Contacts between Scandinavia and the Crimea in the Roman Period; Бажан И, А., Каргапольцев С, Ю, 1989, Об одной категории украшений-амулетов римского времени в Восточной Европе, СА, No.3; also see Meaney, A., Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones, Oxford, BAR British Series 96, 1981, p.166-168, for discussion of the type.

Footnotes

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.