The “expert” in the article manages to be unnecessarily befuddled. The object is said to be at least 1,200 years old. Ok, that takes us to 800 AD. Charlemagne is doing his thing on the continent. Byzantium is under pressure from the A-rabs, Bulgars and assorted barbarians, but it is still holding its own in Anatolia and across scattered coastal areas in Greece and Italy. In England, the Anglo Saxon kingdoms were consolidating and beginning the recovery from the Dark Ages. The Danes will show up shortly and set things back; Alfred the Great is still nearly a century in the future.
So: we have here an usual object, but people were getting around. Is this object unique in a broader European context, or is it unique only in terms of finds in England?
I think it is unusual because of it’s workmanship for that time period, if it is dated properly..................
Interesting. And let us not forget the Phoenicians, who were obviously not responsible for this object, but who inhabited much of Spain and traded in these metals. The same was true of their successors, the Romans, who were the mining kings of Spain, and of course traded with everybody, often through the large Jewish communities in the trading areas.
And finally we have the fact that the Celts (the design looks a little Celtic) swept through Northern Spain and are thought to have gotten to Ireland by setting off from Galicia to Ireland, the closest point of the British Isles they could reach.
The Irish Celts were conquered by the Danes.
So the metal itself could tell an interesting story.