Northern Europe, Vikings or Viking Rus, ca. 9th century to 11th century CE. A very rare find, a silver bowl most likely deposited in a Viking hoard. The bowl would not originally have been made by Vikings, but its surface has been modified to include Viking motifs. The bulbous designs of its body, with eight large, punched bosses around the base and a big omphalos in the center, and smaller round projections around the omphalos and up the sides, creates a wonderfully textured surface. The interior has stamped motifs that will be familiar to fans of Viking artwork - triangles with dots inside of them and small, eye-like circles arranged in artful geometric patterns underneath a ring of anthropomorphic figures that line the interior rim. Size: 6.2" W x 1.8" H (15.7 cm x 4.6 cm); 500 grams

This bowl's bulbous form resembles the Ormside bowl, found in the early 1800s in what is today Cumbria, England. That bowl is actually made from two bowls, manufactured roughly 100 years apart, and fastened together with silver clips. The outer part - the oldest part, which has the bulbous projections - is thought to have been made at an Anglo-Saxon monastery in Northumbria sometime around 750 CE. Famously, the Vikings looted Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian monasteries in 793 CE, when the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" states, "Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race... the heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets." As a result, it is believed that the exterior part of the Ormside bowl was stolen by a Viking from its original monastery home and taken with him to his final resting place, which was a burial with other grave goods in Cumbria. Although this bowl lacks the ornately decorated exterior of the Ormside bowl, it probably came to be in the Vikings' possession in a similar manner.

The York Museums Trust has the Ormside Bowl: https://www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/collections/search/item/?id=538&search_query=bGltaXQ9MTY%3D

Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection

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#132640

Bending to form as shown, with a dark, matte patina. With tiny surface chips and scratches commensurate with age.