Merovingian grave goods

These objects come from one of the richest graves in a Merovingian cemetery near the Dutch town of Rhenen. The woman in question wore beautiful jewelry during her lifetime. The gifts include a necklace of amber and multicoloured glass beads. Around her wrist she wore a smaller string of beads and a solid silver bracelet, the ornaments of a woman of high standing.
Other artefacts are a silver-plated hair-pin and two sets of brooches, so-called fibulae. One set consists of two rosettes inlaid with almandine (a deep red semiprecious stone), the other of two precious bow fibulae decorated with animal heads. Another item is the buckle of a leather girdle, that has itself not been preserved. The latter enabled her to carry around practical tools: a knife, a flint and a large rock-crystal bead (possibly a spindle whorl).
On top of all this, she was given a costly beaker to accompany her in her grave It is a flaring drinking glass featuring glass threads running from the bottom on to the side. The glass-maker showed tremendous skill in applying the threads to the bottom of the glass. He put on blobs of hot glass mass, which he then drew out with pliers to form threads, and attached them to the side of the beaker. Glasses like these were mainly used to drink wine from.