Context (Field collection)
The catalogue card includes sketches of the decoration and of the collection site. The card also reads: "Antiquities of all periods, Neolithic - Mediaeval, have been noticed by him in the same area"
Found: On the other side of the road

Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Gilded with narrow tinned border. Centre plain. Z one between this and the border filled with zoomorphic decoration of unusually good design and workmanship: consisting of legs and heads alternatively (two heads next to each other in one place only). Heads have angular jaws and ?protruding tongue. The whole enclosed by a narrow beaded border. The back of the disc shows traces of iron rust in two places, not on the broadest part of the disc. Also a small circular depression, not quite in the centre. The rust might indicate an iron pin, or attachment to an iron vessel
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (References)
Leeds, E.T. (1949). A Corpus of Early Anglo-Saxon Great Square-headed Brooches. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 77, no. 126 (illustrated)
Event Date 1949
Author: Imogen Gunn

Context (Analysis)
Although Leeds (1949) tentatively identified this object as a disc from the bow of a square headed brooch (following the advice of Thomas C. Lethbridge), Dickinson (2005) records that when 'John Hines examined it, he was 'as confident as he could be that it was most probably a shield disc from the apex of the boss' (p. 125). Dickinson notes that its size and form is consistent with this analysis and her Type B, although the decoration is atypical.
Event Date 2005
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (References)
Dickinson, Tania M. (2005) 'Symbols of Protection: The Significance of Animal-ornamented Shields in Early Anglo-Saxon England', Medieval Archaeology, vol. 45. pp. 125 & 153, Fig. 8, Table 2. (illustrated)
Event Date 2005
Author: Imogen Gunn

Description (Physical description)
Gilt copper alloy disc, likely an apex disc of a shield boss. Narrow tinned border. Centre plain. Zone between this and the border filled with zoomorphic decoration open-jawed heads and V-shaped tails of eight Style II-like serpents. The whole is enclosed by a narrow beaded border. The back of the disc shows traces of iron rust in two places, not on the broadest part of the disc. Also a small circular depression, not quite in the centre.
Event Date 21/1/2021
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)