File:KENT-176AE1, Fragment of gold finger ring (FindID 455901).jpg

Small circular setting made of gold and enclosing a circular dark-coloured cabochon-cut inlay, glass. There is a gold backplate, to which is soldered a tripartite border of a pair of plain gold wires flanking a neatly beaded central gold wire; the beads are c. 0.5mm in diameter. This border covers the join between the backplate and a vertical gold collar, which is curved slightly to fit tightly around the cabochon setting. The backplate has a central hole c. 2.5mm across, probably resulting from a central fixing being torn away. The hole is now filled with earth. The visible part of the glass setting is c. 4.5mm in diameter. Total diameter 8.5 mm, thickness 3.7mm. Weight 0.69g.

Discussion

Similar glass bosses can be seen on a range of seventh-and eighth-century items (Wilson 1964, 17). Seventh-century items such as linked pins, however, usually have projecting attachment devices; and bosses on brooches, for example, are not usually made as separate components.

Eighth-century items appear to be more often made as separate components. The Witham linked pins, for example (Wilson 1964, no. 19) have central bosses made from gilded silver and originally containing glass, of approximately similar size, and attached by means of a single central rivet on the reverse (Wilson 1964, 132). Their collars consist of a twisted wire flanked by a pair of plain wires.

A silver and blue glass stud 14mm in diameter, with two prongs protruding from its reverse, is illustrated in Hall 1984, 32-33, with an outer border of beaded and an inner border of twisted wires. The Ormside bowl, of mid to late 8th-century date, has similar bosses, set either with blue glass or with silver domes, and with a variety of beaded and twisted wire collars. The 28 blue glass bosses on the lost 8th-century Witham hanging bowl appear, from surviving illustrations, to be similar again. They are 11mm in total diameter, with three or four rings of similarly chunky wires, all beaded or twisted.. The central glass settings are small on one illustration (Graham-Campbell 2004, fig. 2) but rather more conventionally sized (approximately 6-7mm) in the other (fig. 6). The double prongs are matched on a blue glass stud from the 'Ainsbrook' hoard, now in the British Museum (accession no. 2006,1203.1; TAR 2004, 91); this hoard is coin-dated to the last quarter of the 9th century.

The Gravesend Cross (Wilson 1964, no. 20) has a much larger (22mm diameter) glass-set mount in its centre, attached by two rivets on the reverse, with cabled inlay and a complex filigree surround. It was found in a hoard coin-dated to 872, but may well have been made in the 8th century (Wilson 1964, 17).

In conclusion, the style of this very well-made piece places it in the seventh or, more likely, the eighth century, and it may have come from any of several items including pins or other jewellery, or a vessel.

References

Graham-Campbell, J., 2004. 'On the Witham bowl', Antiquaries Journal 84, 358-71.

Hall, R., 1984. The Viking Dig.

Wilson, D. M., 1964. Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 700-1100 in the British Museum