Details

LOT 0395

Viking Age Scandinavian Silver Filigree Tau Cross Pendant

CIRCA 10TH-12TH CENTURY A.D.

1 1/2 in. (7.5 grams, 39 mm).

With scooped outline to the body, transverse suspension bar; applied filigree and granule detailing, large 'eyes' flanking the median panel with looped interlace detailing; cleaned and polished. [No Reserve]

Provenance

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

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.12070-212342.

Literature

For similar gold pendants from the Hiddensee Island hoard, see Stralsund Museum of Cultural History, Germany.

Footnotes

This piece bears many similarities to a hoard found on the island of Hiddensee in the Baltic Sea. The hoard consisted of a classic Borre-style disc brooch, a neck ring of four twisted rods and a necklace of ten stylised cruciform pendants, such as this example. The items constitute a single set of jewellery and seem to be a gift from a Danish nobleman intended for presentation to a Slav woman of high standing. They were buried for safety en route during some local emergency that resulted in the items not being claimed. Evidence for the production of pendants in the Hiddensee style is provided by the remarkable find of forty-one bronze dies, as used for the manufacture of the pressed sheets onto which the filigree wires and granules were soldered. These dies were kept together in a leather bag, which had been dropped in the harbour at Hedeby.