File:Copper alloy Anglo-Saxon sword pommel (FindID 156357).jpg

English: Copper alloy sword pommel. The pommel is of 'cocked' hat form and is undecorated. The pommel is divided into three sections; a main sub-pyramidal body with rounded apex, and two instepped terminals at either terminal. The pommel is hollow and there are two incomplete, circular-sectioned shanks contained on the reverse of the insteps, which would have secured the pommel to the hilt guards. The entire pommel measures 52mm in length, 13mm in width and 19mm in hight. The main body measures 34mm in length. The surface has an even light green patina, and is very smooth, appearing very unworn.

This pommel can be compared to two other examples from Lincolnshire, both of which are gold and of extremely high status. The finds came from the 'Market Rasen Area' (2002 T285), and Wellingore (2003 T258), and both were recorded through the Treasure Act. The Market Rasen pommel is made of gold sheet over a lead forma, and the Wellingore pommel is made of gold sheet over a copper alloy forma. Further afield, the Heckington pommel can be compared to one from Aldbrough, East Yorkshire, which also consisted of gold sheet around a leaded bronze matrix (Treasure Annual Report 1998-1999, number 60).

It is not clear whether this copper alloy pommel was once gold plated or whether it was intended as it is.

The 'cocked-hat' form of pommel is Anglo-Saxon and can be dated to the 6th or first half of the 7th century. The Market Rasen example was dated to the first half of the seventh, and belongs to Menghin's Group E (Typ Beckum-Vallsternarum: Wilfred Menghin, Das Schwert im Fruhen Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1983), p. 315 and Map 3), with outliers in East Anglia and Kent, the Danube headwaters of Frankia, and Lombardic Italy (A. C. Evans, Treasure Annual Report 1998-1999, p 34). This copper-alloy one is more likely to be sixth century.