Copper-alloy inlaid sword pommel

Silvered bronze sword pommel, width 4.5cm, but one side broken when found. Cast in cocked-hat form, hollowed beneath and containing remains of some sort of seating for sword tang. But buried without sword, perhaps as a trinket or a sword symbol.One broad face set with a circular garnet with flat top and bevelled sides inside a collar with surrounding grooves and one ridge nicked in imitation of beaded wire. On either side of this cramped and ill-executed pseudo-cloisonné ornament filled with niello. On the other face a well-executed cloisonné design sunk and filled level with niello of step-pattern cloisons inside semi-circles. Down narrow sides each a panel filled with two-strand plait or interlace. Top very worn. The remaining side has rather a long projecting end, separated by triple grooves, and decorated with grooving to represent a bird head with beak.The catalogue (Payne 1892a, 38 and figures) indicates that three sword pommels were asigned this catalogue number. See pommels for graves 88 and 104. – D.H.