LOT 0352

Viking Gilt Gotland-Type Fish Pendant

9TH-10TH CENTURY A.D.

2 3/4 in. (23.2 grams, 72 mm high).

Composed of a tapering, round-section body with flat base and inverted triangular mouth holding a moveable bar, suspended on a ring with twisted wire coils and stamped with small circles repeated on the bar below; the fish body decorated with four panels of low-relief Mammen Style interlacing with remains of gilding; two circular piercings to each side of the body. [No Reserve]

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

Cf. MacGregor, A. et al., A Summary Catalogue of the Continental Archaeological Collections, Oxford, 1997, item 13.1, for similar.

Originally produced as a necklace element, refashioned at an unspecified point in antiquity into a pendant, possibly as early as the 9th-10th century A.D.
Pendants of this type were worn strung together in groups, the tapering profile allowing them to sit comfortably as a collar below the neck. They were often worn suspended between two zoomorphic brooches. This example has been taken from a necklace and mounted on a suspension ring for use as an amuletic pendant.