Viking Age Glass Bead Necklace with Bronze Pendants

With round-section twisted wire body, tubular sleeves with faux ropework collars and ribbed suspension loop, one terminal repaired. 92 grams, 15.3 cm

Fine condition, one terminal repaired.

Private collection before 2000. UK art market. Ex property of a London gentleman.

Adorned with granule clusters to the sidewall and a granulated cross to convex base. 1.40 grams, 14 mm



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

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.

Executed in repoussé technique, a dome to each arm likely representing the Five Wounds of Christ, together with punched annulets and other details. 6.56 grams, 51 mm



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