page_title: Anglo-Saxon brooches
section_title: Square-headed
hierarchical_section_title: Anglo-Saxon brooches / Early Anglo-Saxon brooches / Long brooches / Square-headed
caption_attribution_description: Anglo-Saxon; Brooch; Metalwork-Silver
context_page_description: Anglo-Saxon brooches are a large group of decorative brooches found in England from the fifth to the eleventh centuries. In the early Anglo-Saxon era, there were two main categories of brooch: the long brooch and the circular brooch. The long brooch category includes cruciform, square-headed, radiate-headed, and small-long brooch brooches. The long brooches went out of fashion by the end of the sixth century.
  The circular brooch form developed from jewelled disc brooches produced in Kent in the early sixth century. In the early Anglo-Saxon era, the circular brooch type included the saucer, the applied saucer, the button, the annular, the penannular, and the quoit brooches. The circular was the most common brooch form during the middle to late Anglo-Saxon era, with the enamelled and non-enamelled circular brooches being the predominant brooch styles.
  There are a few styles that fall into the miscellaneous category. These include the bird and S-shaped brooch of the early Anglo-Saxon era and the safety-pin, strip, ottonian, rectangular, and bird motif of the middle to late Anglo-Saxon era.
context_section_description: Square-headed brooches typically have rectangular heads, not square as described by their name. The foot is generally lozenge-shaped. This brooch is cross-shaped in some types, with animal ornamentation where the bow and foot connect. The square-heads originated in Scandinavia in the fifth century and spread to England and south into Europe toward the end of the fifth century. In England, there are various types of square-headed brooches, including the great square-head, the small square-head and the Kentish square-head. Square-headed brooches were frequently found in Kent and East Anglian graves.
caption: Square-headed brooch
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