Magia ornamentu / Galeria / A brooch from the Migration period
Secret knowledge hidden in a piece of jewellery
This intricate brooch is made of gilded silver. The thin metal is as thin as potato crisp, the surface ridged with a complex decoration of faces and abstract patterns. The keen observer might spot birds, boars and humans maybe even a secret horse. Some of the patterns on this brooch were scratched on and would be known only to the wearer. Such symbols are rarely just decoration but represent wider cosmological beliefs.
It was probably once a part of a high-ranking woman’s clothing as she was laid to rest in a burial mound. The style, knowledge and craftsmanship for making it probably came from the roman and gothic workshops on the Roman-Germanic border and moved north once the Roman empire collapsed.