File:Anglo-Saxon Ansate brooch (FindID 445410).jpg

An incomplete cast copper-alloy anglo-Saxon/Early-Medieval ansate brooch. It is missing the pin due to old breaks but is otherwise complete. The brooch is rectangular in plan and D-shaped in section with a flat back face and rounded front face. At each end are rectangular terminals that taper slightly towards their ends and are decorated with transverse moulded ridges across their tips and bases. These are connected by a steeply curved bow that is semi-circular in profile, D-shaped in section and has a transverse moulded ridge at its centre. On the back face of the brooch one terminal has an integrally cast double lug that is semi-circular in form and has central circular apertures, one of which retains the corroded remains of an axis bar or pin. On the back face of the opposite terminal is an integrally cast catchplate, which is flat, rectangular in form with hooked catchpiece and set at an angle of ninety degrees to the plane of the brooch/terminal. The entire object measures 39.72mm in length, 9.30mm in width (at bow, 8.70mm at terminal), 2.90mm in thickness at bow, 22.26mm in height, and weighs 9.34g.

This ansate brooch is of Middle Anglo-Saxon date similar to examples recorded from Suffolk (e.g. West, 1998: no. 12.1; SF-03C300, SF-B258C5). It belongs in Thorle's Group XC brooches (Thorle, 2001: fig. 52) and dates to the 8th or 9th centuries AD, c.720-850 AD, if not continuing later into the 10th century.