Make an Anglo-Saxon pendant
The people who lived in East Anglia from about 1,500 years ago had originally come by boat from the North of Europe - places we now call Germany or Denmark - and settled in Britain building villages just like at West Stow.
In graves from the time, archeologists have found beautiful things that would have been the special belongings of the person buried in the grave.
Sometimes a sword or a fancy bowl or pot; sometimes a belt-buckle or a disc-brooch for fixing their cloak on their shoulders or a pendant to hang around their neck
These jewels were made of gold or silver or copper - sometimes with precious stones. Often they used red garnets like these.
Why not have a go at making your own disc pendant at home?
You will need:
Cardboard cut into discs about 7.5 cm across.
String or thin cord
Tin-foil
Little stick-on jewels (preferably red - the Anglo-Saxons LOVED garnets!)
A glue-stick
A hole-punch
Make your pendant:
Take a cardboard disc and draw a simple design on the plain side. Look at the examples. Don’t try anything too fancy as it gets more tricky later.
Cut some short lengths of string - enough to trace over your design.
Cover the whole of the disc (and your design) with glue.
Stick the string over the lines of your design.
Then take a piece of tin-foil and carefully place it on top of your brooch.
Slowly and gently press the tin-foil around the patterns you have made with the string. Don’t go fast or press too suddenly or the tin-foil will split.
When you’ve got your outline covered, mould the spare tin-foil carefully around the reverse side of your brooch.
Then choose 3 or 4 of red stick-on jewels to use as your garnets and stick them in the spaces between the raised parts of your design.
Punch a hole near the top of your disc to thread some string through. There you are - a pendant all of your own!
