File:Bird brooch (reverse) (FindID 63672).jpg

English: Treasure Act case 2004 T379. 11th-century gilded silver bird brooch of cross-on-back form, now incomplete. The bird is seen in profile, looking to the right. The head and body are half-round, with a hollow reverse. The bird has a short curved beak, with a groove separating the larger upper part and smaller lower part. The eye is made from a crescentic ridge with a raised annulet within. The neck is short and undecorated, and thickly covered with gilding. The body is broken at the breast, but there is a hint of vertical grooved decoration just above the break.

The wing is folded along the side of the bird, and is in slightly higher relief. It is decorated very neatly with vertical rows of indentations. The first row is of two, which are shaped to fit into the curved front of the wing. The second row is of three semi-circular indentations which look like overlapping scales. There are fine engraved lines around the indentations and around the edge of the wing. The rest of the wing is decorated with linear grooves; each groove is outlined with fine engraved lines and the intervening ridges also have a similar central longitudinal line. A cross emerges from the top of the wing at its junction with the neck, and one of the side arms is joined to the back of the head. This cross is decorated with a wide groove running inside, and following, the edge, giving the impression of a raised centre. The breaks appear relatively fresh. The brooch is very well made and decorated, and is probably made from silver; it has extensive gilding over the front. This type of bird brooch is known from Denmark and from England and appears to date from the 11th century.

Anna Gannon comments:

The bird's eye may have originally been set with glass. In general, brooches in the shape of birds are fairly common Scandinavian finds (Pedersen 1999), and examples have also been found in Germany, France and England (ibid. figs. 19-22, and see Gannon The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coins, Oxford 2003, pp. 114-5). Some are just in the shape of birds; others carry crosses, rosettes or small fledglings. Whilst some of them can be understood to follow in the tradition of bird-shaped Germanic ornaments, the addition of Christian symbols makes their apotropaic and devotional character plain. The beak of our bird could identify it either as a dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, or as an eagle, symbolic of the Resurrection.

Non-destructive X-ray fluorescence analysis on the corroded surface of the mercury gilt silver brooch indicated a silver content of approximately 98%.

Acquired by the British Museum, under the Treasure Act.