Elisabeth Okasha

Kirkdale—The Inscriptions

THE FRAGMENTARY REMAINS of a lead plate have recently ban found in excauations near St Gregorys Minster, Kirkdale. North Yorkshire. An inscripton on it appears to refer to a reliquary, ossuary or ...

A third supplement to Hand-List of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions

This supplement brings up to date my Hand-List of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions (Cambridge, 1971). It contains twenty-six entries, being all the Anglo-Saxon non-runic inscriptions which have come to my notice since the publication of the Hand-List . The entries are followed by the Bibliography. This gives in full the references quoted in abbreviated form throughout the supplement unless they have already appeared in the General Bibliography of the Hand-List . The Bibliography is followed by Addenda to the Hand-List which give additional information about several of the Hand-List inscriptions. A list of Corrigenda to the Hand-List follows and the supplement concludes with Addenda to the Bibliographies of the Hand-List entries, bringing them up to date.

The Staffordshire (Ogley Hay) hoard: recovery of a treasure

The Staffordshire (Ogley Hay) hoard was found on the 5–10 July 2009 by Mr Terry Herbert while metal-detecting on arable land at a site in south Staffordshire in the English Midlands (Figure 1).Mr Herbert contacted Duncan Slarke, the Portable Antiquities Schemes Finds Liaison Officer for Staffordshire and the West Midlands, who visited the finder at his home and prepared an initial list of 244 bags of finds. These were then taken to Birmingham Museum and HM Coroner was informed. Duncan Slarke also contacted the relevant archaeological authorities including English Heritage, the Staffordshire Historic Environment Record, the Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the Portable Antiquities & Treasure Department at the British Museum. A meeting was held in Birmingham on 21 July at which it was agreed that the controlled recovery of the remaining objects of the hoard and an archaeological investigation of the findspot was a priority. It was also agreed that one of the Portable Antiquities Schemes National Advisors, Dr Kevin Leahy, should compile a hand-list of finds in preparation for the Coroners Inquest.

A late Saxon inscribed pendant from Norfolk

The inscribed lead piece illustrated in pl. V was an isolated metal-detector find from near Weasenham All Saints, a village in north Norfolk (NGR: TF 848221; Sites and Monuments no. 34651). It was brought to our attention in April 1998 by staff at the Castle Museum, Norwich, and obligingly left by the owner in the British Museum for a considerable time to facilitate its study. It was subsequently acquired by the Castle Museum (acquisition number NWHCM: 2000.3) where Alan West, Curator, arranged for investigation by radiography. All this reflects the considerable difficulties in reading the lettering and interpreting the ornament on this small piece.

Anglo-Saxon Inscribed Sheaths from Aachen, Dublin and Trondheim

THREE ANGLO-SAXON inscribed sheaths are discussed in detail, and compared with other contemporary sheaths for small angle-backed weapons. An appendix lists all known examples.

The Staffordshire Hoard Inscription and Other Biblical Texts in Anglo-Saxon Inscriptions

The recently found inscribed strip from the Staffordshire Hoard contains a text taken from the Bible. This text is discussed in the light of the other biblical texts, some twenty in number, which occur on Anglo-Saxon inscribed objects. The discussion includes the languages and scripts used in the texts, and also the materials, likely functions and dates of the inscribed objects.

Crosses in Inscriptions

This paper analyses the use of crosses appearing in Anglo-Saxon inscriptions. The focus of the discussion is on whether or not the use of crosses can be associated with factors such as the date or function of the inscribed object, the material the object is made from, or the language used in its text. There are 323 separate non-runic texts occurring on 251 objects, giving a reasonably sized body of material to work on. The conclusion reached is that it seems to be the function of an inscribed object that is of most importance in whether or not a cross appears in the text.

Re-evaluating base-metal artifacts: an inscribed lead strap-end from Crewkerne, Somerset

Abstract Strap-ends represent the most common class of dress accessory known from late Anglo-Saxon England. At this period, new materials, notably lead and its alloys, were being deployed in the manufacture of personal possessions and jewellery. This newly found strap-end adds to the growing number of tongue-shaped examples fashioned from lead dating from this period. It is, however, distinctive in being inscribed with a personal name. The present article provides an account of the object and its text, and assesses its general significance in the context of a more nuanced interpretation of the social status of lead artefacts in late Anglo-Saxon England.

The Limpsfield Grange disc

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 Coroners 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.

A pair of inscribed Anglo-Saxon hooked tags from the Rome (Forum) 1883 hoard

The importance of the hoard found in the excavations in the Forum at Rome in 1883, just outside the the House of the Vestal Virgins, has long been recognized by Anglo-Saxon numismatists, for it is the largest recorded source for the coinage of AEthelstan and Edmund. Archaeologists, art-historians and epigraphers have, however, failed to appreciate the significance for Anglo-Saxon studies of the pair of silver tags found with the coins (pl. VIII), bearing between them the name of Pope Marinus, despite their having been illustrated (in uncleaned condition) by Christopher Blunt in his 1974 account of the hoard. The tags themselves are described and discussed here by Dr James Graham-Campbell and their inscriptions by Dr Elisabeth Okasha, both working from photographs kindly made available to us by Dottoressa Silvana Balbi de Caro, of the Museo Nazionale in Rome, through the agency of Dr Michael Metcalf.