This fish-tail-shaped pendant is a faithful replica of a piece of jewelry from the Viking Age, crafted based on an archaeological find from the island of Gotland and dated to the 9th–10th centuries.
The historical original comes from a hoard discovered near Krasse, close to Guldrupe on Gotland. Today, it is housed in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.
The pendant measures 4.5 × 1.6 × 1 cm; including the hanging loop, it reaches a total height of 5.5 cm.
Fish-tail-shaped pendants (Swedish: fiskhuvudformiga hängen) were part of women’s attire during the Vendel and Viking periods, approximately from the 8th to the 10th century, particularly on the Swedish island of Gotland. They were made from sheet bronze, though more often they were cast from bronze, and some examples were decorated with silver-plated details.
Originally, they were worn strung side by side as an elaborate necklace that could consist of more than thirty pendants. During the Viking era, however, many of these ornaments were modified—either fitted with an eyelet for hanging on a chain or transformed into brooches, with two or three pendants sometimes combined into a single piece of jewelry.
