English: Description: A small circular gold object, probably a pendant. The object has a backplate apparently made from a number of smaller pieces of gold, which is framed by a gold strip set on edge, 1.5mm wide, which runs around the edge to a butted join at the top. Within this is a two-ply twist of gold wires, c. 0.5mm in diameter, which forms an inner frame and also has a joint at the top. Here the twist meets three more two-ply twists which extend from the top edge of the disc vertically down into the middle. This appears to form a neck, as it ends in a raised animal head made from soldered-on gold foil, with a broad snout shaped like a duck's bill; there are no further details added such as eyes. The head of this central animal is evidently hollow, as it is badly dented and a crack runs across it where the snout begins to narrow.

Two Style II animal heads in profile flank the central animal head, also pointing downwards. The more complete animal, to the right, has a round eye made up of a lower curved groove and an upper straight ridge which continues to become the top of the neck; another ridge makes the underside of the thin neck. The pointed jaws are open and splayed outwards, the upper jaw being longer than the lower. The lower edge of the jaw, where it meets the cheek, has a pronounced square angle.

Only the jaws of the left-hand animal are visible; the rest extends out of the frame of the object, partly because it is sited off-centre, further away from the central animal. The backplate in between has some tears and casting flaws (small circular holes). An alternative interpretation of these jaws, and of the central duck-bill snout (although not the right-hand animal, with its eye), is that they could represent the tail of an animal such as a fish.

It is difficult to see how the lateral animal heads have been made. From the front they appear to have been formed either by hammering over a die or by using the freehand repoussé technique, but neither is visible on the reverse and they may have been cut out of sheet gold and been soldered in place, or have been cast in one with their fragment of backplate.

The body of the right hand animal runs upwards, parallel to the neck of the central animal, and then stops abruptly at the edge of its fragment of backplate. This edge runs transversely beneath the neck of the central animal head; it is ragged on the right and more neatly straight on the left. Above, on another smaller fragment of backplate, two unbeaded gold wires make semi-circles in the top left and top right quadrants of the disc. Under the microscope these wires have slight helical grooves, showing that they were made by block-twisting, i.e. twisting and smoothing a square-section rod (Whitfield 1990, 14-18). On the reverse these two different fragments of backplate can be clearly seen, with a third tiny triangular piece of gold sheet added to the reverse of the more complete animal's head to fill a small gap in the backplate.

The flared snout of the central animal touches a beaded line which forms the lower edge of the larger fragment of backplate. This beaded line is short and may originally have been hidden beneath the twisted-wire frame; it appears not to be part of this design. It has apparently been made from a beaded wire which sits on a step above the rest of the sheet; the step and the wire look as if they have been soldered to the edge using excessive heat, so that they have completely fused to the backplate. The beading runs transversely across the lower edge of the disc, either in a straight line or on a curve of much larger radius than the current edge of the disc.

On the reverse several more components are visible. At the bottom, within the plain gold strip that forms the outer frame, there is a short length of loosely strip-twisted wire which underlies the two-ply twist and may have been intended to fill a gap between the beaded edge and the frame. Towards the top is a trimmed fragment of sheet which has no obvious use on the backplate and may be the end of a soldered-on suspension loop, but there is no obvious scar from the other end of this loop. A tiny hole between the plain strip frame and the edge of the backplate may have something to do with suspension arrangements.

Also on the reverse is a cut rectangular fragment which appears to overlie a crack in the backplate behind the left-hand animal head (or forked tail), suggesting that at least some of the damage here is ancient. It retains a fragment of a Pressblech design which imitates filigree, consisting of an interlacing pattern of three strands, made up from one line of bold beading flanked by lines of finer beading. This may have been part of a circular design similar to that on the bracteates from Wingham and from Buckland Dover 134, both in Kent (Gaimster 1992, 20).

Dimensions: 19mm top to bottom, 18.8mm side to side, approximately 2mm thickin total. Weight 1.8g.

Discussion: This is a very curious and unusual pendant. Neither its composite construction nor its combination of decorative elements can be readily paralleled. It seems unlikely that it represents a repair of a more conventional pendant, as there are so many evenly sized pieces. The re-use of a piece of recognisable Style II decoration is also exceptional. Its status is unclear; although it is made from precious metal, at 19mm diameter it is a relatively small pendant, and although much work has gone into it, the level of skill appears relatively low.

The object can clearly be defined as treasure since it is over 10% precious metal in content and over 300 years old. The region around Birmingham traditionally has very few finds from the seventh century, which would make this a find of at least regional significance.