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256

Dress Accessońes

Hooked annular brooch

Copper alloy

1338 SWA81 acc. no. 1493 (context 2113) ceramic phase 12 fig 164

1 29.5mm; annular frame d 14mm, with a nick in the side where the wire pin is attached; the ends of the frame extend, tightly twisted together, at a right angle to the pin; one end is cut off and the other curves round in a hook, which is filed to a point.

The frame and hook are apparently madę from a length of drawn wire, which is somewhat thicker than that of the pin; the frame has been hammered fiat, and the twisted part has also been slightly hammered.

The function of this smali item is obscure - it was presumably used in the manner of a brooch, with the hook for attachment to something else. The slight angle at which the hook lies is similar to that on 16th-century hook-ended belt tags which were prob-ably joined together in pairs. It is possible that the present item is a forerunner of these, though the brooch-like method of fixture here seems to be at the wrong angle for joining to have been effected in precisely the same way; for this reason it would probably not have been as satisfactory for joining the ends of a strap as it would for holding parts of a textile garment together. The hook could perhaps have held a chain or pendant vertically. Cf no. 1305.

Annular/oval frames with twisted wire decoration

Copper alloy

1339    BIG82 acc. no. 3068 (context 5400) ceramic phase 6

d 26mm; gunmetal frame and silver pin (AML); the decorative spirals are slightly damaged; the basis of the frame is a wire ring with the ends joined by opposed loops; around this armaturę, thinner wire, which had already been densely spiralled, was then wound in larger spirals (the thinner wire may originally have been one length - it is now broken); the D-section pin was added without a special gap being madę in the spirals.

1340    SWA81 363 (720) 6 or later fig 164

A less-damaged example, similar to the preceding one; the spirals are very neat and regular; frame 24x22.5mm; bronze (AML); the pin has been added at the point where the ends of the outer spirals join; the outer spirals consist of about 35 major loops, each

having about seven or eight smaller spirals - ie some 200 minor loops in all.

The overall effect of the spirals in the two preceding brooches - an apparently complicated, dense decoration - is achieved by the repetition of a very simple process.

1341 BWB83 1442 (389) 11 fig 164 d 21mm; brass frame and pin (AML); frame is a wire ring of widely spaced spirals (simpler than in the two preceding brooches), with a larger gap for the wire pin; the frame is joined by inserting one end with a loop in the opposite direction from the others into the first loop at the other end. There is a fragment of a similar brooch in the National Museum of Denmark (acc. no. D 596/1971, found at Slagelse).

A smali gold brooch found in York having quite similar spiralled-wire decoration, also round a plain annular armaturę (Daniells 1979, 27), shows that this style was current in high-quality brooches too. Cf Margeson 1985, 56-57 fig 38 no. 4 for a morę elaborate wire frame for a religious badge, probably of post-medieval datę.

Quatrefoil frame

Copper alloy

1342 BWB83 acc. no. 5804 (context 298) ceramic phase 11 fig 165

22x23mm; bronze (AML); frame has series of trans-verse bands; pin missing.

Rectangular frame

Copper alloy

1343 BIG82 2287 (2278) 8 fig 165 & colour pl 6D

22x23mm, frame has separately cast sexfoils attached ' at each comer by spherical-headed (d c.5mm), cast rivets; D-section wire pin. An unusually three-dimensional brooch.

Lozenge-shaped frame

Pewter

1344 SWA81 3377 (2139) 9 fig 165 & colour pl 6E

max 36x36mm; pewter (AML); the frame is divided