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Description: | Copper alloy mount, probably from a bridle. The construction is complicated and the mount appears to have been either mended or modified in antiquity. It consists of a decorated gilded openwork front plate, with a gilded centre plate set immediately behind; then there is a gap for the leather strap, then an ungilded backplate is held on by rivets. The decoration on the openwork front plate shows that one complete edge and two incomplete edges of a rectilinear mount survive, giving a width of 35 mm. The fourth side is missing on each of the three plates; the gilded centre plate is the most complete, extending to 23 mm long. The decoration on the openwork plate is too fragmentary to be able to completely reconstruct. Around the three original edges is a frame offlat-topped circular pellets between two ridges; the pellets are slightly larger along the complete edge. Within this frame are the remains of animal decoration. In one corner is a copper-alloy rivet and two double-strand spirals; from each spiral a band emerges decorated with transverse ribbing. One of these bands is broken off almost immediately, but the other interlaces underneath a band with longitudinal ribbing (two grooves, three strands). The three-strand band (a body?) is crossed in its turn by a single-strand element (a leg?) which ends at the frame by curling over a second rivet. Another single-strand ?leg appears to pass under the three-strand body and end in a two-toed (or two-strand) foot, curling over a third rivet which is close to the opposite corner . The openwork plate has a slight flapge around the reverse of the three complete sides, which accommodates the rather thick central plate. The three rivets hold the openwork plate to the two other plates, and appear to be respected by the decoration. They are exactly the same green colour, and have the same corrosion, as the front plate; they have raised the material of the backplate slightly as they pass through it. The situation is complicated by the presence of three further, darker rivets, each mirroring the slightly asymmetrical position of the green rivets. These three rivets do not distort the backplate as they emerge through it. They cut through the frame and its decoration, and half of each rivet cuts through the flange. In addition, one rivet (next to the spirals) holds a tiny fragment of another thin sheet plate over the decorated front; the other two stand slightly proud as if they once also held this sheet. Although the thin sheet only survives as a tiny scrap, it does follow the edge of the pellets with what may be an original edge. The three darker rivets appear secondary, as they cut through the decoration and they duplicate the position of the greener rivets. But they have no obvious repair to effect; the three original rivets are still holding the three sheets together. Their function must therefore have been to hold this extra sheet, a fragment of which now conceals part of the decorated frame. The extra sheet appears to be thinner than the backplate, but it is just conceivable that the two were originally one, riveted on to give the mount a securer fixing. The mount is similar in size to the famous bridle mounts from Broa (Sweden) and Borre (Norway), although the construction, with gilded backplate, is different. I have found no precise parallel for the decoration, although it appears to be in the tenth-century Borre style. | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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