Small Long Brooch 1

Henry
Sun, 20 Nov 2022 15:56:31 +0000
Brooch, Object Reconstructions, Copper-Alloy, dress accessories

I did my project on a brooch recovered from a graveyard near the current-day civil parish of Eriswell. The graveyard belonged to a village referred to as little Eriswell during the sixth-century and contained thirty-three burials. The brooch and the background of the cemetery in which it was found paint a picture of a Britain composed of small settlements wherein a level of social differentiation had taken place, but still one where everyone was continually fighting for survival.

This brooch and the context of its burial, both in terms of who and what it was buried with, and the relation its grave has to those around it, can tell us a lot about the state of this village in south-eastern Britain. In terms of the style of the brooch itself the elements of its square head and knobs suggest that it seems to be descended from styles present in Norway. This suggests that the village and the area around it had some sort of Norwegian migration. This movement would likely have had a large impact on the culture of the village as well as the surrounding area.

Originally in order to recreate my object I was going to use a 3D scan; however, this did not create a useable product so I chose to draw it instead. The process of drawing my object led me to think more about how simple it was. This simplicity made it quite easy for me to draw it, much easier than it would have been to draw a more ornate brooch such as the one the woman wore around her neck. This simplicity must also have been on the mind of the craftsman or men who originally created the brooch. Because the pattern for the brooch is created by the mold a more complicated brooch necessitates a more complicated mold. The time required to create these more complicated molds alongside the fact that the molds themselves had a very low rate of survival likely incentivized craftsmen to try to simplify their designs as much as possible. This pursuit of simplicity must have added further value to the much more intricate and larger square headed brooch worn under the chin. Additionally, it makes the three knobs on the square head of the brooch much more important as these fragile aspects must have held a large amount of importance otherwise they would likely have been simplified out.