Details

LOT 0275

Viking Sword with Inlaid Cross and Orb Mark

CIRCA 10TH-11TH CENTURY A.D.

36 1/2 in. (752 grams, 93 cm).

With three-lobe pommel and decorated guard; the blade 45mm wide at the upper end, gently tapering with fuller to both faces, rounded tip, indented ring to one face with silver inlay, scaphoid-section lower guard with two rows of shallow pellets to each face gilt or latten inlay; flat tapering tang; pommel of Petersen's Type S with traces of vertical inlaid wire.

Provenance

From the family collection of a London gentleman; formed in the late 1940s-1950s; thence by descent.

Accompanied by metallurgic analytical report number 114366/569, written by metallurgist Dr Brian Gilmour of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford.
Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12020-214090.

Published

Exhibited at Harwich Museum, Harwich, Essex, UK, 14th March-9th June 2024; accompanied by a copy of a photograph of the artefact on display.

Literature

See Petersen, J., De Norske Vikingsverd, Oslo, 1919; Oakeshott, R.E., The Archaeology of the weapons, London, 1960; Peirce, I., Swords of the Viking Age, Suffolk, 2002; Hjardar, K. & Vike, V., Vikings at war, Oxford-Philadelphia, 2016, pp.169-170, for the type; the pommel finds good parallels in various similar Viking age specimens, like the sword from Mixnam’s pit, Chertsey, today at the Chertsey Museum (Peirce, 2002, pp.98ff.).