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Date: |
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Description: | A copper-alloy late early medieval or Viking Age possible sword fitting.
This object is cast and is a distinctive reddish brown in colour, as are many late early medieval objects, such as stirrup terminals and mounts. It is incomplete as fragments are missing from the upper edges of either end due to old breaks; it measures 86.91mm in length, 24.51mm in height. When viewed in plan the object is roughly an elongated oval shape, with a swollen middle, 24.10mm in thickness, tapering to square ended terminals, 8.12mm in thickness. When viewed in profile it can be seen that the terminals curve upwards gently. The object is hollow with an open upper face, the edges of which are shaped, and a cast integral lower face, which is curvilinear, as mentioned above, when viewed in profile.
This lower face has three large roughly rectangular holes through it. These are crude, irregular and appear unfinished; there are casting seams surviving on this face, all of which implies that this face was no meant to be seen when the object was in use. The central hole is rectangular and measures 19.96mm in length and 10.41mm in width and the flanking holes, which taper towards the terminals of the object, these measure 15.73mm by 10.19mm and 13.90mm by 8.81mm in size.
Both of the terminals are square-ended and one has a step beneath an old break. This terminal also has the remains of a white solder adhering to its inner face, presumably an extra method of attachment to hold this object in place.
Both outer faces of the object have a shaped upper edge, and are decorated with grooves, which have slightly jagged edges and which therefore may have been formed by rocking a chisel backwards and forwards after casting. The shaped edge and the grooves depict two beasts?? heads, depicted in side profile. Both beasts are facing outwards, their snouts being in the narrower terminal ends, each beast appears to have open jaws and have oval shaped eyes. Behind the heads there are curvilinear spiral-like grooves, which could represent ears or bodies, these flank a central vertical motif with a triangular point at its top. At the base of this central motif there is a protruding circular knob. Both faces depict the same design but on one face both the shaped upper edge and the grooved design are slightly off centre. This decoration is in the late Viking Ringerike style, which was current during the time of Cnut (1014-42) and perhaps continued later in England. It is this distinctive style which helps to date the object.
Dr Helen Geake has examined this object and suggested that it is possibly the upper guard of a sword. The upper guard fits beneath the pommel. Peterson sword types L and Z and their variants are potentially the best parallels for this example as they appear to have a upper guard which is curves upwards and is riveted to the pommel (Pierce, 2002, 74-83 and 127). However, there is no evidence that these upper guards are made separately, as our example is and no parallel for the decoration or the form of the holes. The holes on the Peterson types L and Z consist of a central rectangular hole, for the tang, which would be flanked by two circular rivet holes, but in this example all the holes are large and roughly rectangular in shape. This difference perhaps indicates that this object has another function and is not a sword fitting at all, but some other kind of decorative fitting. | Subjects: | upper guard | 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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