‘Productive’ Sites in the Polders? ‘Griffin brooches’ and Other Early Medieval Metalwork from the Belgian Coastal Plain

Abstract

The present paper demonstrates how metal detectorists’ collections potentially form an important addition to the extant corpus of early medieval non-ferrous metalwork. Several sites in the Belgian coastal plain featuring rich metalwork assemblages dated to this period are presented. The important questions raised by these artefacts regarding the chronology, nature and socio-cultural affiliations of settlement in the early medieval coastal plain are discussed. In addition, a previously unrecognised, distinct type of openwork disc brooch is described, dated and framed within technical, typological and artistic developments of late tenth- to early twelfth-century north-western Europe, in particular the North Sea area.