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Description: | A complete cast copper-alloy hookpiece from a Anglo-Saxon sleeve or wrist clasp of Hines Class B12 (Hines 1993, 46-49). This hookpiece is formed of a bar alone, this bar is measures 40mm in length and 7mm in width, the central integral hook-element, which is expanded and projects from the rear edge of the bar is wider, when including this the bar measures 28mm in width. The bar has no sewing lugs. Projecting from the rear edge of each terminal there is a waisted rectangular protrusion, measuring c6mm in length and c4mm in width, it is likely that the hookpiece was sewn to the garment via these projections. The bar is decorated on its front face. The terminals consist of an undecorated square slightly raised panel. Inbetween the terminals and the central hook-element the bar is decorated with three parallel transverse mouldings each with two transverse grooves across it. The central integral hook-element consists of a rectangular recess, 12mm in length and 7mm in width, which has an oval shaped perforation through its centre, 5mm in length and 3mm in width. This hole would presumably have accomodated the catch-element of the missing half of this wrist clasp. Projecting from the rear edge of the bar behind the rectangular recess the hook-element is expanded and is the shape of a lower case T. It has three bands of transverse moulding with two transverse grooves across each one, as the rest of the bar does, it then has a rectangular transverse plate, 15mm in width and 7mm in width, finally projecting from the centre of this there is a rectangular projection, 7mm in length and 5mm in width with a rounded terminal. A very similar hookpiece has been discovered in L. Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire (Hines 1993, 47, fig 90, c). Clasps of this type are concentrated in and around East Anglia and are generally datable to the 6th century (Hines 1993, 46-47).
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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