eyes of the animals, are all tinned or silvered. Surviving records of the third escutcheon indicate that it was of a different style and size. Drawings by Bateman and Jewitt show it with a scroll pattern and small piece of frame. It appears to have been about half the size of the other two, and may have originally been placed at the bottom of the hanging bowl. The escutcheons were undoubtedly part of an entire hanging bowl when buried. Nothing else survives. The mass of corroded chainwork discovered six feet away, which survives only in illustrations by Jewitt and descriptions by Bateman, is unlikely to be related; although a large and intricate chain was found with a cauldron from Sutton Hoo, the Benty Grange chains appear dissimilar. The Benty Grange chainwork was also likely too heavy to have been used to suspend the hanging bowl. Parallels The animal designs on the Benty Grange hanging bowl are parallelled by designs on other escutcheons, and even more closely by designs on medieval illuminated manuscripts. Three escutcheons from a hanging bowl found in Faversham show animals that also look like dolphins, but with more developed bodies; a better parallel is with a disc found near the Lullingstone hanging bowl that is also decorated with dolphin-like creatures. The third escutcheon from Benty Grange, meanwhile, surviving only in illustration, is most closely parallelled by the basal disc of the Winchester hanging bowl. Despite the similarities with other escutcheon and disc designs, several manuscript illustrations are more closely related to the Benty Grange designs. Bateman remarked on this as early as 1861, "shrewdly" as it turned out, noting that similar patterns were used in "several manuscripts of the VIIth Century, for the purpose of decorating the initial letters". Anglo-Saxon metalwork designs like those on the Benty Grange escutcheons may have inspired aspects of the manuscript art. In particular, the mid-seventh-century Durham Gospel Fragment contains two similar fish-like motifs contained within the lateral stroke of the INI monogram that introduces the Gospel of Mark. The Book of Durrow also contains a similar illustration of linked yellow dolphin-like creatures. Date The Benty Grange hanging bowl is typically dated to the second half of the seventh century, based on its design, and the associated finds from the barrow. Given the presence of a helmet and cup with silver crosses, wrote Audrey Ozanne, "[t]he straightforward interpretation of this find would