File:Anglo-Saxon Florid Cruciform Brooch (FindID 238690).jpg

English: The foot of a copper-alloy Anglo-Saxon florid cruciform brooch. A short section from the base of the foot survives, including an elaborate Style I human-head terminal. The remainder of the brooch is missing due to old breaks. The foot is slightly convex in section, although it does not have a prominent central ridge, and the terminal has a flat back with central concave triangular recess and moulded front face. The front face of the foot, probably the nose of a horse's head, is separated into two distinct trapezoidal fields that have borders composed of double moulded lines separated down the middle of the brooch by an additional vertical moulded line. In each field is identical double-stranded running hooked spiral decoration, with three surviving hooked spirals visible in each field.

Beneath the trapezoidal fields is the moulded terminal in the form of a human head. This has prominent rounded brows with eyebrows delineated by moulded grooves that extend to either side of the face. Two prominent round eyes are visible directly beneath the eyebrows and are enclosed by prominent cheek bones, and separated by a sub-triangular shaped nose. The base of the nose has transverse moulded grooves above an oval shaped moulding that probably represents the mouth. Extending from each side of the cheeks is moulded zoomorphic decoration depicting preditory birds. These have long necks with grooves at either side and a single row of punched annulets running down the middle. The necks extend outwards and curve round terminating in moulded heads with prominent eyes and hooked beaks that meet the extremities of the eyebrows, thus creating small oval shaped holes between the human eyes and those of the birds. The entire front face of the brooch has traces of gilding, while the back face has no evidence of decoration.

This fragment measures 29.38mm in length, 38.59mm in width, 5.33mm in thickness, and weighs 15.08g.

This is the foot of an Early Anglo-Saxon florid cruciform brooch. It shares some similarities through the use of a human face as terminal end with examples from Icklingham in Suffolk (West, 1998: pl. III nos. 2-3) and in West's Group V Florid cruciform brooches (West, 1998: pp. 295, 311, Fig. 152; see also Leeds and Pocock, 1971). For similar parallels on the Portable Antiquities Database see for example SF-1A1C04, DENO-4EF591 and NMS-2E8F03. However, the current example has more elaborate decoration on the exterior of the foot, particularly through the use of moulded scrollwork. Similarly, the zoomorphic elements at the base of the terminal although similar to some examples of Florid Cruciform brooches (see for example West, 1998: Fig. 152, no. 13) are more pronounced than on many of examples with human heads (see for example West, 1998: Pl. III no. 3; MacGregor and Bolick, 1993: nos. 12.37-12.39 all of which have stylised and small zoomorphic projections). Dr. Helen Geake (pers. comm.) also notes that the moulded spiral decoration on the horses nose in this example finds no immediate parallel and may be an attempt to echo more conventional spiral horse nostrils. This example does, however, belong to the same general class of florid cruciform brooch, despite the lack of close parallel, and would therefore date to the Early Saxon period of the 6th century AD.