File:Early medieval, Great square-headed brooch fragment (FindID 830450).jpg

English: Part of the upper plate and bow of an Early Medieval copper-alloy great square-headed brooch. On the back is a hinge with iron corrosion. On the front is a black surface deposit which could indicate the brooch has been in a fire. The original width of the brooch was c34mm.

The squares in the central head plate and the paired facing beasts in the outer panels, the bars on the bow and pointed upper terminal of the bow are relatively well represented in Hines Group XV.

The brooch belongs to Hines' Group XV, or a variant thereof (c.530-570).

John Hines kindly comments:

This square-headed brooch fragment is fascinating. It's a one-off, but Group XV is where we have to look for the parallels: particularly to the form of the bow, and the profile animal heads in the headplate upper corners, while the designs in the headplate inner and second panels are pretty comparable too. But the heads in the upper corners have uniquely been turned around to face upwards rather than outwards. Altogether I'm inclined to suggest that this is a rather idiosyncratic copy of a Group XV, perhaps by someone who at least wasn't familiar with the 'grammar' of the design of those brooches. That could fit with it being a copy made somewhere in the south. Otherwise the distribution of this group is really pretty tightly around Cambridge and Northamptonshire.