Animal style

[2] Steppe jewellery features various animals including stags, cats, birds, horses, bears, wolves and mythical beasts.

The species represented has seemed to many scholars to be the reindeer, which was not found in the regions inhabited by the steppes peoples at this period.

In some cases these bronze animal figures when sewn onto stiff leather jerkins & belts, helped to act as armour.

A distinct Permian style of bronze or copper alloy objects from around the 5th–10th centuries AD are found near the Ural Mountains and the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia.

The origins of these different phases remain the subject of debate; developing trends in late-Roman popular provincial art was an element, as were earlier traditions of the nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples.

First appearing in northwest Europe, first expressed with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century.

It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.

Interlace, where it occurs, becomes less regular and more complex, and if not three-dimensional animals are usually seen in profile but twisted, exaggerated, surreal, with fragmented body parts filling every available space, creating an intense detailed energetic feel.