Bright Lights in the Dark Ages

Bright Lights in 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. Highlights of this volume, replete with sumptuous images, include stunning Sarmatian-period jewellery, rare examples of Hunnic and Gothic garnet cloisonne, and exceptional brooches from the Merovingian period as well as superb Early Byzantine gold belt fittings.