File:Ansate brooch (plan) (FindID 428650).jpg

English: Cast copper alloy ansate ('handle-like') brooch decorated with equal-sized shield-shaped plates on either side of an arched bow, in profile, that is rectangular in plan, and semi-circular in section. Each plate has four punched ring-and-dot motifs, in a diamond formation, on the upper faces, and there is a singular ring-and-dot punched in the centre of the bow. The hinge, made up of two semi-circular perforated lugs, remains intact on the back of one of the plates, but is encrusted with iron corrosion product. The rest of the pin is missing, but on the back of the opposite terminal, the small catchplate, triangular in profile and folded over, is still intact.

This type of brooch used to be thought of as Merovingian, where they are found from the seventh century onwards, but there are now many more of them in England (172 on the PAS database) where they are certainly not found until the eighth century, after the end of furnished burials, as there are none found in burials at all (Helen Geake pers comm).

Hattatt (2000) illustrates a similar example on page 380, Fig.239, No.1323, which was originally identified as a 'Frankish Merovingian period equal-armed brooch'.

Thörle (2001) illustrates similar examples on Tafeln 4 and 5 which are classified as Gruppe I, and the closest type is Group I Type A 2, which seems on the Continent to date from the late 6th to early 8th centuries, but does not arrive in England until the 8th century AD (Helen Geake pers comm).

Middle Anglo-Saxon, 8th to 9th century AD