Viking Objects
Ring-headed Pin (1981/166-2568)
This copper alloy ring-headed pin was used for fastening cloaks and discovered during excavations at Full Street, Derby. Pins like this were common in Ireland and the western British Isles, and spread further afield under Viking influence.
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Viking Objects
Iron Buckle (1985/225-8)
An iron buckle found in Mound 6 at Heath Wood, Ingleby, Derbyshire. It is one of two iron buckles found in this burial mound together with a small number of bronze fragments and iron nails. This buckle has parallels in Scandinavia.
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Viking Names
Roston
Roston, in the Appletree Hundred of Derbyshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name Hrosskell and the Old English element tun ‘farm, settlement’. It is thus a hybrid name. Roston is a joint parish with Norbury.
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Viking Names
Ingleby
Ingleby, historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, takes its name from the Old English ethnonym Engle ‘the Angles, later the English’ and Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’. There is also an Ingleby in Derbyshire, close to the Viking winter camp at Repton, and the site of a unique Viking Age cremation cemetery. The exact implications of such a name are not yet fully understood and are the subject of ongoing work by Dr Jayne Carroll of the Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham. Ingleby in Lincolnshire is now a joint parish with Saxilby.
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Viking Objects
Sword Hilt or Top Guard (DENO-87124F)
A copper-alloy hilt or top guard from an early medieval, possibly Viking, sword or dagger.
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Viking Objects
Blue Glass Bead (2001/59-sf174)
This Viking Age gadrooned or Melon type dark blue glass bead was found in the Magistrates Court excavation in Derby, Derbyshire. Glass beads were a coveted item for making jewellery with some being imported from as far away as the Middle East. They were manufactured by specialised artisans who would heat various coloured glass rods over a furnace and melt the glass onto a metal stick to form different shaped beads.
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Viking Objects
Gilded Mount (1989-59/7591)
A gilded copper-alloy mount with approximately eight projecting pierced lugs. The mount was found in three pieces and is incomplete. It may originally have been domed, but most of the dome is missing. It has been suggested that it was a shield boss.
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Viking Names
Smisby
The first element of Smisby, in the Repton and Gresley Hundred of Derbyshire, is either Old Norse smiðr ‘smith’ or it Old English cognate smið, the second element of the place-name is Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’.
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Viking Objects
Iron Buckle (1988/225-9)
An iron buckle found in Mound 6 at Heath Wood, Ingleby, Derbyshire. It is one of two iron buckles found in this burial mound together with a small number of bronze fragments and iron nails. This buckle features a strap slide secured between the backplate and two terminal rivets.
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Viking Objects
Early Medieval Pottery (Full Street)
These fragments of early medieval pottery are from Full Street, Derby, a site on the south-eastern corner of the Viking Age town.