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Description: | Incomplete cast copper-alloy object, originally circular in section and 24 mm in diameter; 19 mm in surviving length. About half of the circumference is missing (old breaks). It is decorated on the external face with mouldings; from one end to the other, a convex moulding 2 mm wide, a convex moulding 4 mm wide, a concave moulding 4 mm wide, a convex moulding 2 mm wide and the remains of a broken convex moulding (old break). The object as it survives is thus asymmetric in its mouldings. It is also asymmetric in its other cross-section, tapering from 6 mm thick at one break to 3 mm thick at the other. There is uneven wear on the complete end. Internally, the ring is facetted and might originally have formed a regular octagon, except that the perforation is placed so far from the centre that the octagon would have broken through the external edge. The octagonal facetting removes the possibility that the tapering of the ring was caused by internal wear. There are patches of olive green patinated surface on the original worn end and on the mouldings, but none on the corroded breaks. The interior surface has a dark grey or black coating. JD Hill of the British Museum has seen this object and accepts it as Iron Age; he has suggested that it may be part of a bridle, but has not been able to find a parallel. The size of ring is right for a bridle (assuming little has been lost from the end break), but the internal facetting and tapering section seem odd. Edward Martin (the Suffolk Iron Age specialist) is less happy about it being Iron Age and suggests that it is a medieval or early post-medieval socket or ferrule with mouldings around its mouth and dirt/soot inside. The mouldings, however, seem out of place in the medieval or early post-medieval period and to me have a distinctly Celtic/classical feel. The dark grey coating is shiny and looks more like a decayed solder/white-metal coating than soot or dirt. Debate is continuing on this object!
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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