The Undley bracteate is a 5th-century

bracteate A bracteate (from the Latin ''bractea'', a thin piece of metal) is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age (including the Ven ...

found in Undley Common, near

Lakenheath Lakenheath is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk (district), West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. It has a population of 4,691 according to the 2011 Census, and is situated close to the county boundaries of both Nor ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. It bears the earliest known inscription that can be argued to be in Anglo-Frisian Futhorc (as opposed to Common Germanic

Elder Futhark The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark, ), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Per ...

). The image on the bracteate is an adaptation of an ''Urbs Roma'' coin type issued by

Constantine the Great Constantine I (27 February 27222 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a Constantine the Great and Christianity, pivotal ro ...

, conflating the helmeted head of the emperor and the image of

Romulus and Remus In Roman mythology, Romulus and (, ) are twins in mythology, twin brothers whose story tells of the events that led to the Founding of Rome, founding of the History of Rome, city of Rome and the Roman Kingdom by Romulus, following his frat ...

suckled by the she-wolf on one face. With a diameter of 2.3 cm, it weighs 2.24 grams. It may have originated in northern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

or southern

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

and been brought to England with an early

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

settler. The inscription reads right to left around the circumference of the obverse side, terminating at the image of the wolf: The ''o'' is the earliest known instance of the '' os'' rune contrasting with the '' æsc'' rune . The three syllables of the initial word ''gægogæ'' are written as

bind rune A bind rune or bindrune () is a Migration Period Germanic typographic ligature, ligature of two or more Runic alphabet, runes. They are extremely rare in Viking Age inscriptions, but are common in earlier (Proto-Norse) and later (medieval) inscri ...

s, with side-twigs attached to the X shape of the gyfu rune to represent the vowels ''æ'' and ''o''. The words ''mægæ medu'' are interpreted as meaning " for the ", i.e. "reward for relatives", referring to the bracteate itself. The word ''gægogæ'' appears to be some magical invocation or battle cry, comparable to the ''g͡ag͡ag͡a'' on the Kragehul I lance-shaft.

References

*J. Hines and B. Odenstedt, ''The Undley bracteate and its runic inscription'', Studien zur Sachsenforschungen, 6 (1987), pp. 73–94. *J. Hines, ''The Scandinavian character of Anglian England in the pre-Viking period'', BAR British Series 124 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 204–9. *S. E. West, ''Gold bracteate from Undley, Suffolk'', Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 17 (1983), p. 459. *

Notes

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External links

Gold bracteate at the British Museum
Bracteates Individual items of jewellery Medieval European objects in the British Museum Runic inscriptions Anglo-Saxon runes Anglo-Saxon art She-wolf (Roman mythology) Ancient Roman jewellery

References

See also

Notes

External links