Crafted from copper-alloy, this early medieval disc brooch features a bird holding a branch (outlined above by Peter Reavill, Finds Liaison Officer for Shropshire and Hereford). The item is thought to date to between c.AD 800 and c.AD 1000, and it was found on farmland this past summer by a metal-detectorist near Stoke upon Tern in Shropshire.
The brooch measures 39mm across, with a central panel 24mm in diameter. The recessed rim is decorated with raised curves and beaded around the outside, but it survives incomplete: approximately a third has been lost completely and a further small section has become detached.
The bird, in the central panel, is depicted against a background decorated with coloured enamels of light and dark blue, with small sections of red, yellow, and white. The technique used was champlevé enamelling, which would have involved creating depressions in the brooch that would then have been filled with powdered glass and fired. The reverse is not decorated, but there is a dished recess corresponding with the central panel.
