Viking Age Bronze Twisted Bracelet

A rectangular bronze pendant formed as a pair of addorsed horse-heads in profile and openwork panel; bar with seven articulated chains each terminating in a pendant formed as the foot of a wading bird, Finno-Ugric type. 146 grams, 15 cm



From the private collection of a London gentleman, from his grandfather's collection formed before the early 1970s.

Pentagonal mount with central hole, vestigial ledge to the reverse, low-relief addorsed dragon-head motif; apex lobe absent; Williams's Class A Type 1. 21 grams, 47 mm



Found Wiltshire, UK, 2010.

Miniature drum-shaped vessel with strap handle, beaded wire bands to top and bottom of sidewall, filigree loop ornament. 2.02 grams, 18 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.