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The Limpsfield Grange disc

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Elisabeth Okasha and
Susan Youngs
Elisabeth Okasha
Affiliation:
University College, Cork
Susan Youngs
Affiliation:
The British Museum, London
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Extract

In March 1992 a diminutive decorated disc was submitted for comment to the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, British Museum. The owner had found it by using a metal detector in an arable field south of the M25 motorway at Limpsfield Grange in the parish of Limpsfield near Oxted, Surrey (NGR TQ 4053). The disc appeared to be an isolated find and a Coroner's Inquest was not held. The piece was subsequendy sent for auction and acquired by the British Museum acting in cooperation with Guildford Museum. There is no Anglo-Saxon material recorded from the immediate area.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 25 , December 1996, pp. 63 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Information supplied by the finder; an account was published by Hunt, D., ‘The Story of a Little Gold Disc’, The Searcher (06 1993), 42.Google Scholar

2 Sotheby's Works of Art Sale, 07 1993Google Scholar; British Museum registration MLA 1993, 10–1, 1.Google Scholar

3 These are semi-quantitative results by x-ray fluorescence provided by the British Museum Department of Scientific Research.

4 Analysis and observation made by Susan La Niece, British Museum Department of Scientific Research; see also Niece, S. La, ‘Niello: an Historical and Technical Survey’, AntJ 63 (1983), 279–97, at 286–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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9 These are respectively Laverstock, no. 70 and Sherburn, no. 107 in Okasha, E., Hand-list of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions (Cambridge, 1971).Google Scholar

10 Ibid. no. 86 from Llysfaen.

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20 London, private collection; detailed information was kindly supplied by Dr Noël Adams.

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22 Stockholm, Royal Library, A. 135 (Canterbury, s. viiimed), 150v; Alexander, Insular Manuscripts, ill. 147.

23 Dublin, Trinity College library, 52 (Armagh, c. 807 AD), 32v and 68v; Alexander, Insular Manuscripts, ills. 226 and 230.

24 Cambridge, University Library, L1. 1. 10 (Mercia, s. ix1), 31 v; Alexander, Insular Manuscripts, no. 66, ill. 314.

25 Backhouse, J., Turner, D. and Webster, L., The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966–1066 (London, 1984), no. 75.Google Scholar

26 Our thanks go to colleagues who have examined the disc and commented on the text, namely Noël Adams, Michelle Brown and Leslie Webster, and also to Matthew Alexander of Guildford Museum and David Williams, who both worked to secure it for a public collection.