Anglo-Saxon Jewellery for sale
The Anglo-Saxons’ love of display ensured that their jewellery was often colourful, thoughtfully designed and carefully made. Glass and amber beads hung in swags on the front of ladies’ dresses are one long-lived fashion; often the centrepiece was a particularly large barrel-shaped bead, or a gold pendant with a garnet in a cabochon setting. Pendants of various shapes – often miniature weapons – were worn by important females; males sometimes wore boar-tusks set in copper-alloy sleeves, perhaps as hunting trophies. Bangles, neck-rings and bracelets are also associated with female costume. Please choose from the links below to review our constantly changing selection of Anglo-Saxon antiquities including weapons, jewellery and other personal artefacts.
Customers and site-visitors may have noticed that the Anglo-Saxon site pages have been revised. As part of our ongoing programme of improving the quality and reliability of our site, all of the ‘Saxon’ pages have been amended in the light of further detailed research. We aim to roll this out across the rest of the site in due course. Please check back for updates.
|  Saxon Antiquities Main Menu |
| | Saxon 'Filigree' Disc Pendant 024710 | Rare Saxon 'Filigree' Disc Pendant Gold, 1.07 grams, 17.79 mm. Circa 6th-7th century AD. A gold pendant formed as a flanged boss with integral ribbed suspension loop. The disc's decoration comprises concentric rings of filigree ropework, applied filigree double loops and thicker filigree ropework within fine borders. The central motif is a boss, hollow to the rear. Reference: cf. larger sheet-gold disc pendant with filigree detail in Webster, L. & Backhouse, J. The Making of England. Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900, London, 1991, item 36(c). Fine condition. Provenance: from an old collection formed in the 1950's, found continental Europe. | £950.00  |  |
| | Saxon 'Geometric' Bracelet 022613 | Saxon 'Geometric' Bracelet Silver, 7.32 grams, 11.1 cm tip to tip. Circa 6th century AD. A flat-section sheet silver bracelet with tapering ends, decorated on the edges with punched-point roundels. The central row of punched points splits to join the outer rows at each end, and is contained within incised lines with feathered ends. The size of the bracelet (inner diameter maximum 31 mm) indicates that it was intended for a child. Reference: cf. sheet silver bracelet from Barrington A cemetery, Cambridgeshire, in MacGregor, A. & Bolick, E. A Summary Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon Collections (Non-Ferrous Metals), Oxford, 1993 item 26.13. Very fine condition. Provenance: from an old Thetford collection, acquired in 1981. | £195.00 |  |
| | | Merovingian Frankish 'Cloisonné' Purse Fitting 011731 | Merovingian Frankish 'Cloisonné' Purse Fitting Copper-alloy, crystal and glass, 9.38 grams, 34.41 mm. 6th-7th century AD. A finely-made D-shaped fitting from the flap of a purse. The copper-alloy base is decorated with a geometric pattern executed in cloisonné, with intricately cut glass panels forming an interlocking curvilinear design in clear, dark blue and cupric green shades. The central element is a D-shaped cell containing a shaped and polished crystal; this is surrounded by a single cell of the same shape, now empty but originally filled with an organic material, probably polished bone. The design is surrounded by a gilded border consisting of a vertical wall with a horizontal ropework flange. On the reverse are the remains of two attachment pins. The cellwork is executed with copper-alloy strips of about 3mm height. Similar decorative cloisonné techniques are used on the composite brooch in the Canterbury St. Martins Hoard, associated with the Frankish princess, Bertha, who married into the Kentish royal family in the late 6th century. Reference: Webster, L. & Backhouse, J. The Making of England. Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900, London, 1991, p.23 item 5(f). Provenance: from an old European collection. Very fine condition. | £850.00 |  |
| | Anglo-Saxon 'Boar’s Tusk' Pendant 011722 | Excessively Rare Anglo-Saxon 'Boar’s Tusk' Pendant Copper-alloy and organic material, 8.66 grams, 46.52 mm. Circa 5th-6th century AD. A very interesting and unusual Anglo-Saxon pendant made from organic material - either a tusk from a boar, or possibly bone worked into a similar shape. The thicker upper end is encased in copper-alloy strip – a horizontal band around the tusk itself, with a vertical band for suspension, the whole pierced and riveted. The horizontal band is still partly present. The boar was an important symbol to the Anglo-Saxon warrior class, who used its image on their helmets (Benty Grange, Wollaston) and other war-gear; the Old English word eofor ‘boar’ was used figuratively for ‘persistent and determined lone warrior’. Reference: animal teeth mounted as pendants in Chambers, R.A. Oxonensia, vol.40, 1975, p.192. Published: Hammond, Brett British Artefacts, volume I - Early Anglo-Saxon. Extremely rare and in a good state of preservation. | £450.00 |  |
|
| | Back to previous page |
|
|
