Provenance
Discovery: Found by metal detector in 2007.
Findspot: Harrogate, West Riding of Yorkshire, England (National Grid Reference: SE 3090 5490)
Current repository: England British Museum (inv. no. acc no. 2009,8023.4)
Last recorded location(s): Acquired by the British Museum in 2009.
Support
Portable Antiquities Scheme ID: PAS ID: SWYOR-AECB53
Object type: Bossed penannular brooch
Material: Silver
Dimensions: × W 51.30 × D 2.20 mm
Decoration: The front features a beaded border with three out of possibly four plain domed bosses. The bases of two of the bosses have thick filigree collars. The bosses are linked by two short, beaded bands with plain edges dividing the fragment into three fields of decoration, the one at the broad end enclosing an inward-facing animal of Johansen’s creature type 4 with a squared-off snout, dot-punched eye and beaded ribbon body curled round to interlace with its own plain, single-toed limbs with spiral hips (only one foreleg is shown); the smaller of the other two fields contains the surviving head and two feet of a similar animal, while the third field contains a bird of Johansen’s creature type 1b with a curved beak and beaded ribbon body interlaced with part of the body and neck of a second bird. The back is lightly incised with double rings round the heads of the rivets securing the bosses. There is also a testing nick on the longest edge. (British Museum).
Condition: Silver fragment (hacksilver) cut from the sub-triangular terminal of a bossed penannular brooch weighing 39.10 g.
Inscription
Text field: There is a possible line of ogham on a stem-line joining the two circles (around the rivets) at the broad end of the back.
Letters: The inscription appears to be scored on a hand-drawn stem-line with feather-marks at either end.
Date: Late ninth to early tenth century
Edition
Ogham text: ᚛
Transcription: ᚛ATFCẠ᚜
Critical apparatus:
- The final letter is unclear, it could be either a single vowel notch for A or it is also possible that it could be the worn remnant of an M stoke as Johnson (2020, 79) read: ATFC[A/M]
References
- Johnson 2020