Another Funny Brooch

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Here's a funny little guy from our site in Kaga. It's a crumpled-up disc-brooch, about 75% complete, original diameter 71 mm, copper-alloy pin extant and folded into the brooch, pin-catch extant on back, apparently soldered on.

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On the surface of the brooch are a central large boss with mock-filigree, surrounded by five identical ones, and outside those five are another five smaller bosses. All in all eleven bosses. The surface of the brooch is divided into petal-like fields by lines of tiny bumps. All decoration is visible on the back side too: most of the piece is just 0.6 mm thick.

I really wonder about this baby. Judging from the rest of the finds on-site, it's likely to date from after AD 400. But it doesn't look much like anything Scandinavian from the period 400-1100. (During this period, Scandy brooch pins are almost exclusively iron.) It does look a bit like a cheap version of a Kentish 6th century cloisonné brooch. So my guess is that this piece is either

  • English/Frankish 400-1100,
  • Scandy 1100-1500, or
  • Continental 1100-1500.

Anybody able to help?

More like this

Martin,
I've looked through our database and found very few examples that match your brooch. There's this cloissone one:
http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_obj.php?type=finds&id=0013EA161…
which has a slight similarity. The ring and dot does indeed suggest that it fits the Early Medieval date, but it doesn't look like one of our typical cloissone examples. So I wonder if this is more likely to be a crushed saucer brooch? Have a look through these and see if you can see any matches:
http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/search/index.php?loadsearch=1064#a1064
Regards,
Dan

Holy sh... I don't even remember when my hands looked that "un-excavating-stuff"-ish. They're permanently messed up now, and my nails...well, let's not even go there.
Oh, nice find, too!!

By Christina (not verified) on 17 Apr 2008 #permalink

See what I meant about context?
Okey, maybe it was a plowzone find, but getting it out of an ex u would be so much better.

I got to go. Glad you are up to so much and haven't yet sold your soul to get a real job. And about getting your licks in on Bad Bob. Take it easy.

By M E Starr (not verified) on 12 Jul 2008 #permalink