Merovingian Disc Pendant

Germanic pendant in the shape of a sun wheel.

Here you can buy a Germanic sun wheel pendant modelled on a decorative disc from the Merovingian period.

The historical model for this Germanic sun wheel pendant is a Frankish decorative disc from the Merovingian period from the exhibition of the Romano-Germanic Museum in Cologne, which dates back to the late 6th or early 7th century AD.

Link to the historical model...

The sun wheel came from the collection of Baron von Diergardt, who acquired historical objects at the beginning of the 20th century. As with other objects from early collections, the origin of this disc is unknown, but it can be typologically attributed to the Frankish Merovingian period.

Early medieval decorative discs in the shape of sun wheels were common among the Franks, Alemanni and Bavarians from the middle of the 6th century AD as decorative pendants on women's clothing.

The historical model measures 8.4 cm in diameter, while the replica has been reduced to about half that size at 4.5 cm.

You can purchase the pendant in high-quality bronze or genuine silver-plated.
Alternatively, you can also order it in 925 sterling silver (please note delivery time).

A 1 m long black leather cord is included with the sun wheel pendant.

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The sun wheel pendants of the Germanic peoples during the Merovingian period were mostly made of bronze, less commonly of iron and even less commonly of silver or gold, and were usually openwork and decorated with elaborate engravings. These Germanic decorative discs were worn individually on women's belt hangings on a ribbon that hung down from the wearer's belt and to which a number of other amulets or devices could be attached.

These decorative discs were most widespread in Alemannic, Frankish and Bavarian women's fashion, but gradually disappeared from women's traditional dress with increasing Christianisation. Many Germanic decorative discs featured abstract, geometric patterns in symmetrical arrangements, but most of them resemble a sun wheel. Some depict snakes or bird heads in Animal Style I, often arranged as triskeles or quatrefoils.

A religious function in the sense of a clearly defined sun cult can no longer be proven among the Germanic peoples of the early Middle Ages. Rather, sun wheel pendants were understood as symbolically charged decorative objects that had an apotropaic (protective) meaning and continued traditional, pre-Christian pictorial motifs.

In the Merovingian period, pagan symbolic traditions and Christian influences overlapped. Sun wheel motifs are therefore considered less an expression of a closed belief system and more part of an iconographic continuity that dates back to pre-Christian times and was reinterpreted in early medieval arts and crafts.