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Early Anglo-Saxon Clothing

Lesson #5: Page 4
Jewellery, Footwear and Accessories: Brooches 3.

Other Brooch Types
These types do not fit into the bow or circular type brooches, and generally represent imported types.

S-Brooches
These are found rarely in England: Briscoe could locate only eleven examples from Anglo-Saxon contexts in 1968, all confined to the area south-east of a line from the Isle of Wight to Grimsby; more recently, a more northerly example was found in Co. Durham.  Such evidence as there is suggests that they belong to the early phases of settlement here and some examples may well be direct imports from the Continent.   They are generally of silver, often with jewelled eyes.

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Usage: Singly or in pairs.
Distribution:  Mainly south-east England (rare)
Date: 5th century
Size range: 2.0-4.0cm
Typical size: 2.5-3.0cm




Bird Brooches
A number of brooches in the forms of stylized birds of prey have been found, generally in Kent, and seem to be of Frankish origin.   These are usually of silver, often with garnet eyes and niello inlay.  They are generally of fifth to sixth century date.

A second type with less offensive birds (often duck-like) are also known in the form of a flat plate brooch in the shape of a bird.   They are generally of copper-alloy, sometimes tinned with simple punched or incised decoration.   This type of brooch may represent the last traces of the flat animal and bird brooches popular in Roman times.   They are rare but are generally found in southern England, and are probably of sixth century date.

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Usage: Singly or in pairs.
Distribution:  Mainly south-east England (rare)
Date: 5th-6th century
Size range: 2.0-4.0cm
Typical size: 2.5-3.0cm




Unusual Brooches
There are a number of unusual brooches known from Anglo-Saxon graves.   They don't fit exactly into any of the other groups, and were used in a variety of ways.

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Pair of plate brooches of tinned bronze in a swastika shape.
This brooch seems to be a kind of small-long brooch, but is made from a decorative mount from a bronze bowl.
This brooch seems to be a kind of small-long brooch, but seems also to be reminiscent of a crossbow brooch. 
This brooch could probably be classed as an S- brooch, but the backward biting animal is unusual.

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