9th-11th century AD. A gold pendant with flat bottom, flat-section wall and handle, ornamented with panels of granulation and filigree rim. See Meaney, A. Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones, Oxford, BAR British Series 96, 1981, p.166-168 for discussion of similar types. 0.94 grams, 19mm (3/4"). Property of a West London businessman, formed his collection in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Pendants in the form of miniature buckets or drinking vessels have been found in a number of pagan Anglo-Saxon and Viking contexts and are generally made of bronze or iron, with gold examples being rare; three gold examples were found with the hoard from Hoen, Norway. Bronze bucket amulets have been found at Driffield in Yorkshire, and Vimose bog in Denmark, among other places. In form they represent wooden buckets bound with bronze or iron bands which have been found in Anglo-Saxon and Viking graves and are believed to have held mead or ale and were used to replenish the cups from which warriors drank. As amulets they probably represent the ecstatic power of alcoholic drink and the role of women as the dispensers of these precious beverages. [No Reserve]

Fine condition.