File:Drawing of early medieval sword pommmel (FindID 35412).jpg

English: Half of a sword pommel of unusual type, made from cast copper alloy. Only half now survives, with the pommel broken through the rectangular perforation. The perforation is 5 mm wide and is set into the top of a rectangular area which is trapezoidal in cross-section, flaring at the bottom to 16 mm wide. A groove runs along each long edge but there is no other decoration. Emerging from the surviving short edge of this rectangle is a tapering arm, U-shaped in cross-section, which is cast in the shape of a horse's head. At the junction of the central rectangular lobe and the horse-head arm is a pair of broad concave transverse mouldings, then a ridge decorated with three grooves. The top of the head is rounded but neither the ears nor eyes are separately delineated. The nose is decorated with two chevrons made up of fine double grooves; on the top of the nose the grooves have worn away. The nostrils are expanded. The hollow reverse of the object has no trace of iron from the sword tang. There are no rivet holes or any other obvious fixing mechanism, and the pommel must have been held in place simply by passing the tang through the central rectangular hole and hammering it down. I have not been able to find a parallel for this shape of sword pommel, but its similarity to the horses' heads on cruciform brooches must mean that it is early Anglo-Saxon and dates to the fifth or sixth centuries. Surviving length 33 mm, original length at least 60 mm. Postscript (2010): In Menghin 1983 there are illustrations of a group of sword pommels with animal heads and open tops, his Typ Holmegard/Kragehul. They date from the early fifth to the sixth century (p. 64). Another, of slightly different design, was found at Caistor St Edmund and can be found on the PAS database.