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Description: | A complete Roman copper alloy open work hound and hare folding knife handle in exceptionally good condition. It measures 68mm in length, 17.5mm in width and 5.4mm in thickness.
The stylised hare is 21.6mm in length and 16mm in height. It has large triangular shaped ears laid against its back and a curiously tapering head. Its body is small and decorated on both faces with two parallel indented circular rings. Its legs are almost parallel beneath the body and are perhaps being brought together before being stretched apart as they would be whilst running.
The hound is again stylised and larger than the hare, measuring 38.5mm in length from nose to the tip of its tail, it is 17.5mm in height at its tallest point, where the centre of its back arches upwards. Its back legs are stretched back slightly and its front legs bent as if it was running at full pelt. Its head is long with the nose upturned at its tip, which rests on the hares back. Its brow ridge is prominent and there is another transverse ridge beyond this no doubt meant to represent its laid back ears. The body is bent with the back arched and like the hare its body is decorated on both faces with circular ring indentations, now worn. One face has two of these, one above the front leg and one in the centre of the body and the other face has three, above the front leg, in roughly the centre of the body and above the back leg. The tail stretches out from the body and ends with an upcurved tip.
The hound and hare are running along a horizontal bar which curves upwards to meet the hares snout at that terminal end. This bar has a longitudinal slot in its underside as do the hound and hares legs. Traces of corroded iron can be seen within this slot and this is all that now remains of the iron knife blade.
The tail of the hound touches the solid rectangular part of the handle, which measures 11.2mm in length and 17.6mm in width. It has two parallel pairs of vertical decorative grooves across it and its upper edge is moulded. At its terminal end the vertical slot, which runs through it and the rest of the handle, can be seen. It has an iron rivet through it, near to its lower edge, which would have held the iron blade in place and allowed it to have been moved freely in and out of the open work handle.
The handle shows evidence of use wear especially on the sides of the bodies of the hound and hare. This is interesting as it demonstrates that this handle was used before being lost/deposited into the archaeological record.
Other less complete hound and hare knife handles have been discovered at Hitcham, Suffolk (see SF-9D6625) as well as from Freckenham, Suffolk, (see SF4895). There is a published example in Richborough 4 (Bushe Fox 1949, plate XXXV1, no 118) and another very similar example from Thetford (Gregory 1991, p. 131, Fig. 117, no. 19). | Subjects: | Hound and hare | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Minter, Faye - Portable Antiquities Scheme | Identifier: | http://www.findsdatabase.org.uk/hms/pas_... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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