Beschreibung:

ANGLO-SAXON MULTI-COLOURED BEAD NECKLACE 5th-7th century AD A restrung group of glass beads featuring assorted decorated coloured glass beads (round, melon and oblate) with four carnelian spherical beads and two of quartz; modern clasp. 82 grams, 36cm (14"). Very fine condition. Rare as a full wearable necklace. Provenance Found Catterick, Yorkshire, UK. Literature Cf. the glass bead forms in Brugmann, B. Glass Beads from Early Anglo-Saxon Graves, Oxford, 2004 and discussion of the poem in Cessford, C. 'Where are the Anglo-Saxons in the Gododdin poem?' in Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, vol. 8, Oxford, 1995. Footnotes The beads were recovered from the Catterick area (Yorkshire) which is usually identified as the site of the late 6th or early 7th century battle of Catraeth immortalised in the Old Welsh poem 'Y Gododdin' in which a troop of three hundred horsemen from the fortress of Din Eidyn attacked an unnamed but overwhelming enemy force and was wiped out. The case has been made for the British horsemen having set off from the area of modern Edinburgh to attack an Anglian (English) stronghold, although the poem does not mention either the location of the battle or the name of the enemy.