File:Early medieval figurine (FindID 125279-102114).tif

English: A complete copper-alloy figurine of early Anglo-Saxon date, probably from the first half of the 7th century. The figurine belongs to a small group of related figures, all from sites near the east coast of England between Lincolnshire and Kent.

The figurine is a standing three-dimensional man in a distinctive pose, with the arms folded across the midriff and the legs and feet fused together. The head is large and the face oval; the figure wears a probable cap, which has a central parting and is decorated with small circular indentations to either side. The cap tapers at the back of the head to finish at a point at the base of the neck. The eyes are circular indentations set close together; the nose is long and shallowly protruding, and the mouth is a straight groove below this.

The shoulders are narrow and sloping and the figure appears to be naked apart from a pair of tightly fitted trousers. The top of the trousers is shown by a groove across the back, but the arms are folded across the waist at the front. The trousers have a central bulge, which represents the penis.

The figure is now worn and corroded. Gilding survives within some of the circular indentations on the cap, and also within the eyes, but it is impossible to tell how much of the figurine was originally gilded. Other fine details of the decoration may also have been lost.

The figure measures 51.2 mm in total height, 10.6mm in width across the head and 10.7mm in thickness across the head. The head is the thickest and widest point.

Leslie Webster (pers. comm. 2006) has drawn attention to five other figurines of this kind, two female and three male. One male example is from Carlton Colville, Suffolk (image linked to this record). The Carlton Colville figurine is made of silver and is partly gilded, with a pendant loop projecting from the top of the head. It was found on a known early Anglo-Saxon settlement and cemetery site dating to the later 6th and 7th centuries AD. The other parallels are copper-alloy. One (a male figurine) was a 19th-century find from the area of the early Anglo-Saxon cemetery of Breach Down in Kent; a female figurine came from grave 5 in the early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Bradstow School, Broadstairs, Kent. A third example from Kent was a female figurine found by metal-detectorists at Higham; this is now in the British Museum (accession no. 2001,0711.1; see photos added to this record). Finally, a flat-backed male figurine with hands on hips was found at Caistor on the Wolds, Lincolnshire (information from Kevin Leahy).

Leslie Webster points out that although the figurines do vary, as some are more stylised than others, their postural details are similar. They all have a naturalistic portrayal of the human body, and differ from other Anglo-Saxon representations of the human figure or face. The ritual clothing, distinctive pose and selective gilding give the figurines an unearthly quality, and Leslie Webster suggests that the figures may be amuletic, even possibly images of specific Germanic gods. Possible candidates may be the pagan Anglo-Saxon equivalents of the Norse gods of fertility Frey and his sister Freyja.