NHER 34651 (Find Spot record) - Late Saxon metal find

April 1998. Metal detecting. Reported by [1].
Very small incised lead tablet. Details in file from British Museum.
Offered by finder [2] to NCM as purchase, September 1999.
D. Gurney (NLA), 3 September 1999.

This is an exceptionally important amulet with the name of God in Hebrew, 950-1100.
See British Museum identification (S1) in file.
E. Rose (NLA), 24 January 2000.

For full details, see the published accounts (S2) and (S3).

This is a small Late Saxon lead pendant, with a lightly-incised Crucifixion scene and lines of Anglo-Latin verse with one word of Greek and two of Hebrew, both divine names. There are close parallels with Insular Latin literature from the 7th to the 10th century, and the fact that this is an unpretentious and personal object made of lead, instead of some precious metal, indicates that interest in such things was not just the preserve of a few isolated clerics, but was generally diffused among people who were literate and religious.
D. Gurney (NLA), 30 January 2007.