Viking Age Bronze Bracelet with Interlaced Design

Retaining a section of the brooch's free-running tongue; discoid terminals set with blue and purple opaque glass inlays. 19.8 grams, 70 mm



Acquired on the UK art market. Property of a Ruislip, UK, gentleman, by inheritance.

Adorned with filigree to the sidewall and handle, a polished red glass gem to the base held in a toothed setting. 2.24 grams, 21 mm



Private collection formed in Europe in the 1980s. Westminster collection, central London, UK.

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.

With vertical bands and beast-head finials, high-relief braid detailing. 40.9 grams, 79 mm



From the collection of a North American gentleman, formed in the 1990s.

The bracelet finds comparison with those of the Proto-Baltic Finnic Culture. In the Pre-Viking and Viking ages, later forms of this bracelet type were used in Baltic lands mainly in north-western Estonia, Virumaa, Järvamaa, and northern Tartumaa. The latest bracelets of this type, from the 9th century, display a longitudinal groove on their terminals. All bracelets with thickening terminals have been usually found in burials, hoards, or as stray finds.