File:An early medieval tinned-silvered Equal armed brooch (FindID 779059).jpg

English: An incomplete tinned/silvered copper-alloy early Early-Medieval brooch of long equal-arm type.

The brooch is complete, save for the foot, which has snapped behind the catchplate. Both headplate and footplate appear to have been identical; viewed from the front, they are roughly triangular, with the sides tapering from the bow towards the ends. At the top of the head, the brooch finishes in a double-lobed terminal, each lobe decorated with an incised ring-and-dot motif; there is another ring-and-dot motif between and below these, then three more widely spaced similar motifs running longitudinally down the centre of the headplate to the start of the bow. At the lower outer corners of the headplate there are two small D-shaped lobes, one projecting on either side, again decorated each with a single ring-and-dot motif.

The bow is low and undecorated. It is of D-shaped or triangular cross-section throughout, so has a curved or pointed junction with head and foot. The foot has identical decoration to the head, but is interrupted by the break which is roughly 15mm from the base of the bow.

The brooch's reverse is undecorated and has a standard pin and catchplate arrangement; a D-shaped pin bar lug on the reverse of the head, the circular perforation now blocked with iron corrosion, and a catchplate on the reverse of the foot, which bends to the viewer's left when viewed from the reverse. Both pin bar lug and catchplate are set just above and below the bar, and are noticeably long (i.e. they extend a long way back from the rest of the brooch). The pin and spring remain only as corrosion around the pin bar lug.

The brooch is corroded in places, and is covered almost entirely in green patina except for patches of a white-metal coating, probably tinning. The break is abraded, suggesting a break in antiquity. Measurements:41.61mm long, 14.59mm wide, 13.16mm thick and 4.98g in weight.

This brooch is closest to the long equal-arm brooches of the early Anglo-Saxon period, exemplified by one found at Frilford, Berks., now in the British Museum, which has pierced circular lobes on head and foot (1867,0204.8). This was found in a furnished grave. Other examples from graves have been published by Ager in Annable and Eagles 2010, and dated roughly to the early 6th century. Barry Ager has seen an image of this brooch and confirmed the identification.

Brooches of this type are sometimes seen as being similar to Continental ansate brooches of Thörle's type IIIc, which are found in Europe from 7th-century graves which date the brooches to c. 600-680 AD. Thörle's type IIIc have not yet been found in England.

Similar, although not identical, examples of other long equal-arm brooches can be found on the PAS database at IOW-71C99A (also tinned and with similar ring and dot), <a href="https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/702018" title="View details for BUC-F80606">BUC-F80606</a>, <a href="https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/212781" title="View details for IOW-A71E22">IOW-A71E22</a> and <a href="https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/3187" title="View details for KENT2479">KENT2479</a>. All these examples only have one lobe at the terminals.