Anglo-Saxon ‘Form B14a Banded' Wrist Clasp
Copper-alloy, 3.60 grams, 36.29 mm. 5th-6th century AD. An Anglian wrist clasp of Hines's Form B14a, formed as a vertical bar with three lugs on the back edge, all pierced for attachment to the cuff of a female's shift. The bar features three plain raised panels and two D-section rectangular panels decorated with transverse banding. The hook is still substantially in place on the front plate. Wrist clasps were a long-lived fashion among Anglian women, used in pairs to close the cuffs of their long-sleeved shifts. Reference: Hines, J. Clasps-Hektespenner-Agraffen: Anglo-Scandinavian Clasps of the Third to Sixth Centuries AD. Typology, Diffusion and Function. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, 1993, p.54. Extremely fine condition. Provenance: from an old English collection, found Cambridgeshire, England.