mostly-history:Saxon brooch found in Floral Street, Covent Garden (Lundenwic, late600s).The brooch i
mostly-history:Saxon brooch found in Floral Street, Covent Garden (Lundenwic, late600s).The brooch is made of copper. Gold plates and gold wire form afour-pointed star motif in the centre, with a mosaic of polishedgarnets. It is 7cm in diameter.It was buried with its owner, along with beads and silver rings. Thegrave goods found in a position that suggested it had been placed ina bag or container on the dead person’s chest.Fewer than twenty such brooches have ever been found in Britain. Itwas excavated from what was once the Kingdom of Essex (Kingdom of theEast Saxons), which stretched eastwards from Essex to Hertfordshirein Middlesex.The woman who was buried with the brooch must have been a member ofEast Saxon nobility, perhaps even royalty. The use of gold andgarnets (the latter came from as far away as India) would have madethe brooch very expensive and highly prized, to be worn on specialoccasions. These brooches were fashionable among Anglo-Saxon ladiesduring the 600s, particularly in Kent.Lundenwic was founded by the Saxons in the 600s, on a green-fieldsite about a mile west of the ruined Roman city of Londinium. TheFloral Street burials must have been part of a graveyard within thetown. -- source link