The ‘Kingsworthy’ Horned Woden’s Head Applque

This impressive gilt-bronze appliqué represents a male head wearing horned headgear. The face is pear-shaped with discoid eyes featuring garnet or similar inserts, a triangular beard, and extended moustache ends. The hair is covered by a textured helmet or mask extending around the upper face, forming crescent extensions from the temples meeting above the head’s crown. The terminals are designed as bird heads, with possible remains of an attachment stud on the reverse.

Kevin Leahy, National Adviser for Early Medieval Metalwork of the PAS, suggests that this mount belongs to the Early Anglo-Saxon era, dating from the 6th to 7th century. Similar faces with horned headgear are found in various artifacts, including the Sutton Hoo helmet foils, a burial at Caenby, Lincolnshire, and a gold buckle from Finglesham, Kent. While it’s been proposed that these mounts represent the god Woden, who was associated with spears and had two ravens, there are variations in the depiction of birds’ heads, sometimes resembling eagles more than ravens. Additionally, the purpose of this mount remains uncertain, as some examples have mounting pins, while others lack clear indications of attachment. The exact object to which this mount was affixed remains a subject of speculation.

Footnotes

The bird-headed headgear is unique to the 6th-7th centuries in England, with parallels in Anglian England and southern Scandinavia during the same period. Similar depictions of bird-helmeted human faces can be seen on the Sutton Hoo helmet, the foil fragment from Caenby, and a die from Torslunda in Sweden. Other representations include the vandyke designs on foil horn mounts from Taplow, a triangular buckle from Finglesham, and a mount resembling a human head with radiating bands and bird-headed horns from Finglesham, Rempstone, Attleborough, and Soberton. Another mount depicts a figure with the upper body holding spears, as published in Hammond (2010).

The meaning of this headgear remains partially unexplored, but it suggests a connection to later myths involving Odin and his bird messengers. These mythic characters seem to have been familiar in early Anglo-Saxon England.

Published

Recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme under reference BERK-DB4E15.

The Searcher Magazine, number 389, January 2019, where it features as the only item on the front cover and a two-page exclusive article by the finder, Caroline Fathers, on pp.14 & 15.