Viking Trefoil Brooch, Bronze

Viking Trefoil Brooch

Trefoil brooch with griffin animals in the Borre style of the 9th century. A piece from the Danish museum Moesgaard served as a model for this brooch of the Viking Age women's costume.

The first examples of cloverleaf-shaped trefoil fittings were imported from the Carolingian Empire to Scandnavia as strap distributors. There, the jewellery was soon converted into brooches and decorated in their own jewellery style. As a characteristic part of the costume, they were in most cases cast in bronze and sometimes also made in silver. The Trefoil brooches are found without exception in women's graves and were usually worn directly between two large oval brooches, e.g. to close the neckline of the tunic or to fix the apron in front of the chest. The picture below shows the find situation on the basis of a woman's grave from Birka. Like many originals, our Trefoil brooch replica also has an eyelet on the back into which decorative chains or the like can be hung. Towards the middle of the 10th century, Trefoil brooches disappeared from the archaeological inventory.

Handmade of real bronze, with stable and functional iron pin. Diameter approx. 50mm.