File:Early Medieval copper-alloy pommel (FindID 482835).jpg

English: A copper-alloy sword pommel of 11th century date. The pommel is sub-triangular in plan with a curved base. The sides are steeply curving with a slight break in the slope part of the way up. At the top of the pommel is a small rectangular open collar through which the tang of the blade would have been secured. The pommel is rectangular in cross-section.

Both sides of the pommel are decorated with two inward curving scroll motifs. The interior perimeter of each scroll is openwork, though parts are now closed with corrosion. A pair of engraved lines decorate the curved base on both sides. The base metal of the pommel is reddish-purple in colour with patches of green patina.

The pommel measures 56mm wide, 34mm in length and 14mm deep. The opening at the top measures 9mm by 5mm. The internal opening at the base measures 54mm by 9mm.

This pommel is almost identical to LEIC-9158C3, discovered in Leicestershire.

The curved base and engraved lines hint at the development of this sword pommel from a type with a separate guard. Likewise the steeply curving sides with a slight break in slope part of the way up may reflect the pommel's development from a more lobate form.

The pommel is probably a late development of Petersen's (1919: figs. 124-129) type X, transitional to medieval forms. Copper-alloy pommels with this basic shape are rare but not unknown in Viking Age Europe; there is a reasonably close example from Lough Derg, County Tipperary (in the National Museum of Ireland; Peirce 2002: 140-141) and another from Chetwynd Aston and Woodcote, Shropshire, recorded on the PAS database (HESH-920B71). Although neither of these pommels have complex decoration, the symmetrical Ringerike-style engraving is very like that commonly found on stirrup-strap mounts of the 11th century (Williams 1997: 26-34). Petersen's type X is normally dated to the 10th to 11th centuries, and the decoration dates this particular example to the 11th century.