Bright Lights in the Dark Ages: The Thaw Collection of Early Medieval Ornaments Hardcover - 2014

From the rear cover

Bright Lights of the Dark Ages is a major new volume focused on early Medieval personal ornament. It features over one hundred magnificent objects, many crafted in gold and silver and inlaid with sparkling garnet stones. These splendid brooches, buckles, and pendants, created to advertise power and wealth in the barbarian kingdoms, were later interred with their owners to be used in the afterlife. The exceptionally broad scope of the Thaw collection, spanning over a millennium, illustrates the continuity and evolution of fine metalworking traditions. It also reveals the profound influence of the classical world on the new political alliances formed during the early Medieval period that united people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Groups of Iranian Sarmatians and Alans, Turkic tribes from the east, and Germanic and Slavic barbarians in western Europe were all shaped by their interaction with the Roman and Byzantine empires. Highlights of this volume, replete with sumptuous images, include stunning brooches from the Sarmatian period, rare examples of Hunnic and Gothic garnet cloisonn�, exceptional brooches from the Merovingian period, and superb Gallo-Roman enameled brooches and spoons.