Northern Europe, Norman culture, ca. 10th to 11th centuries CE. In amazing condition! This is a bronze pendant with two stylized horse heads curving away from one another that are attached to a simple hinge hanging on a ring. The bronze has a smooth, dark olive green patina. The strong influence of Viking and Celtic artwork - both styles depict horse heads in a similar fashion - is clear here. During the medieval period (here taken to mean from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance), the various straps used to harness horses were decorated elaborately with bells, studs, bosses, pendants, and other metal objects; we know this from images in illuminated manuscripts. Imagine what all of these together must have looked and sounded like -- Chaucer, writing in the 1380s, wrote: "His bridle, when he rode, a man might hear Jingling in a whistling wind as clear,/Aye, and as loud as does the chapel bell, Where my lord Monk was Prior of the cell." All of these pendants served both to emphasize the owner's wealth and status, and to act as amulets against "the evil eye". An archaeological example of this came from a find in Ireland in November 2011, when a leather belt with buckles and covered with decorative metal studs was uncovered in a deep well. The leather belt turned out to be a peytral, the part of a harness that connects the saddle to the breast plate; many of the metal studs had a similar animal design with hinged dangling object style as this piece. Size: 1.75" W x 1.55" H (4.4 cm x 3.9 cm)

Provenance: Ex-Private LA County collection acquired over 20 years ago

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#117565

Choice with smooth deep green patina