Metal detectorist finds medieval gold brooch with supernatural inscriptions

The brooch contains religious and magical inscriptions in Latin and Hebrew

Photo credit: Portable Antiquities Sceme

A complete Medieval gold inscribed annular brooch, dating to c. AD 1150-1400. The brooch has a slightly sub-circular frame, with a lozengiform cross-section. The frame is bevelled on either side, giving four surfaces, each inscribed with part of a Christian devotional prayer. The letters are inscribed in Lombardic text, with the use of cross potent to divide some of the text. Each part of the inscription reads clockwise from the pin constriction.

The front outer angle of the brooch inscription reads: + AVE. MARIA. GRACIA. PLENA: DOMINVS: +

The front inner angle reads: T: ECVM: BENEDICTATV: INMULIERIBV[…] (The letter ‘S’ is missing, possibly due to lack of space as the pin constriction is here)

The reverse outer angle reads: ET: BENEDI(CT)VS: FRVCTVS: VENTRIS: TVI. AMEN

The reverse inner angle reads: + A + G + L + A +

The translation for this Latin inscription is:

HAIL MARY FULL OF GRACE THE LORD/ IS WITH THEE/ BLESSED ART THOU AMONGST WOMEN/ AND BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF THY WOMB. AMEN

The initials A G L A are Hebrew for Atha Gebir Leilam Adonai (Thou art mighty forever, O Lord).

Links:

https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/102399

https://www.livescience.com/medieval-gold-brooch-supernatural-inscriptions?fbclid=IwAR3a7Bysp7tiOIETf3TdGdKyfUV2TbXLVSsSxh7Dk7s9BiMFonoI0KuArI8

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s