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Details
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]
Provenance
Private collection formed in Europe in the 1980s.
Ex Westminster collection, central London, UK.
Literature
Cf. MacGregor, A. et al., A Summary Catalogue of the Continental Archaeological Collections, Oxford, 1997, item 13.1, for similar.
Footnotes
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.
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