Viking Bronze Jellinge Style Regardant Beast Pendant

With circumferential bands of silver inlay and gilt detailing; free-running ring with similar inlay. 40.2 grams, 15 cm



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

Comprising: a thumb ring with overlapping arms and lozenge cross-section; a lead trade weight for precious metals bearing pellet motifs to one face; a clothes fitting or other object with two discoid faces joined by an arm, each face displaying a central dome. 18.6 grams total, 21-32 mm



Ex DRG Coins and Antiquities, Essex, UK. Ex private Merseyside, UK, collection.

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.