Viking Age Silver-Gilt Entwined Beasts Mount

Cup-shaped in sheet gold with applied filigree detailing and granule clusters. 1.19 grams, 13 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.

Modelled in profile with radiating tripartite crest, triangular stub wing, splayed feet, catch and pin-lugs to the reverse. 10.9 grams, 38 mm



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

Formed using an Abbasid Caliphate dinar coin with ridged suspension loop attached. 4.43 grams, 22 mm



Acquired in the late 1970s and 1980s. Ex property of a London gentleman.

Such Islamic coins were traded across the Viking world and have been discovered as grave goods or in hoards (as coins and as jewellery items) in Scandinavia and the Baltic area.