Thor’s Hammer pendants from England in the light of recent finds

Abstract

Thor's hammer pendants have until recently been comparatively rare finds in Britain and Ireland. Studies of the Vikings in Britain and Ireland have tended to continue to re-state this rarity, ignoring the fact that there has been a steady rise since the millennium in the number of hammer pendants recovered both through archaeological excavations and through metal detecting, with the current corpus including more than 40 examples from England alone. This paper highlights some important recent finds, and considers the distribution, typology and chronology of the wider corpus in their wider historical and archaeological context. 

The Medieval Seminar Series is sponsored by the World Archaeology Section at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the British Museum. All meetings start at 6.15pm at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. 

• The programme for the 2022-23 Institute of Archaeology/British Museum Medieval Seminar Series is available here»

Seminar Series Convenors:

• Sue Brunning (British Museum)
• Andrew Reynolds (Institute of Archaeology)

Meetings Secretary:

• Iain MacDonald (Institute of Archaeology)