Old-English: relics

Square-Headed Brooch, 6th century; Anglo-Saxon; Copper alloy with gilding and niello inlay. This large gilded brooch, which would have been used to secure a cloak, displays the Anglo-Saxon preference for lavish decoration with a particular emphasis on fantastic animal forms. Dark strips of niello inlay frame its richly faceted surface, which is further animated by beast heads, many with bird beaks, projecting from the edges.

Disk Brooch, early 600s; Anglo-Saxon; Probably made in Faversham, southeastern England; Found at Teynam, southeastern England; Gold, cells inset with garnets and glass, border inlaid with niello.

Open Ring Brooch, early 800s; Pictish or Irish; Found near Galway, Ireland; Silver with amber insets. Iron Age Celts of Britain were the first to develop the open ring brooch, a type that would remain widespread in the British Isles through the early Middle Ages. Each terminal of this example in silver is decorated with three stylized masks in the form of birds' or bats' heads, enframing a polished amber.

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