File:Early medieval sword pommel fragment (FindID 505421).jpg

English: Description: Part of a very small partly gilded silver early Anglo-Saxon sword pommel cap of 'cocked hat' shape. Less than half survives, the fragment consisting of one shoulder and a little of both sides, with a pair of broken circular loops, originally to hold rivets, at the lower end of the shoulder. These spring from a rather low vertical end, only 3mm tall, which is gilded. The surviving shoulder is ungilded, and is decorated with a central engraved inverted Y shape, with the central stem running up towards the centre of the pommel. This has been rather badly made, with the right-hand arm of the Y not quite meeting the junction of the stem and the left-hand arm. The stem has surviving niello inlay. To either side of the Y is a row of punched triangles, most with niello inlay surviving; the points of the triangles face inwards towards the Y. Beyond the triangles, the angle of the shoulder and the main faces of the pommel have deep broad grooves which have substantial surviving gilding.

The main faces of the pommel cap each have a short wide gilded groove which nearly, but not quite, meets the groove on the angle. In front of this, one face has a row of punched triangles with no surviving niello. Within this is a right-angled gilded groove with what appears to be a tiny fragment of raised ungilded centre, perhaps the corner of a rectangular field of decoration; this can be seen on the view to the right of the image. The other face appears to never have had the row of triangles; there are several slightly curving score marks running parallel to the edge, perhaps the remains of cut marks. All breaks appear relatively fresh and it is not obvious that the edge next to the scoring is cut. The inner face is smoothly polished to a bright silver.

Dimensions: The fragment measures 20.7mm long, 11.6mm wide and 0.9mm thick. It weighs 2.64g. The approximate original length of the pommel was perhaps c. 40mm.

Discussion: The pommel is of Menghin's Bifrons-Gilton type (1983, 312-15), which tend to be decorated with nielloed triangles and broad grooves. A particularly close parallel from Gilton in Kent has a similar rune-like mark on each shoulder (Hawkes and Page 1967, pl. IIIa; Evison 1967, 87 no. 11; Menghin 1983, 313 no. 55) and another silver pommel from Gilton grave 56 has zig-zags on the shoulders (Evison 1967, 87 no. 10 and fig. 8b; Menghin 1983, 313 no. 54). Runes or rune-like markings often occur in this position, whether actual runes or simply apotropaic devices (Hawkes and Page 1967, 7-9). John Hines has seen a photo of the Plumpton pommel, and has commented that the scratched motif does not look like a deliberate rune.

Other similar partly gilded sword pommels with shoulder grooves on the PAS database include IOW-481C94 (2), which also has nielloed triangles; NMS-C91286; and SF-DB2F43.

Date: The Bifrons-Gilton type of sword pommel dates to the 6th century AD.