|
Date: |
|
Description: | This is a pre-Conquest, Viking-Age strap end of copper alloy. It is of round-ended, parallel-sided form, being 36mm long, 17.5mm wide (maximum) and 3mm thick. The main body of the tag has 13 circular piercings, and one figure-of-eight piercing formed by the partial merger of two circular ones. The piercings are somewhat irregularly-spaced towards the tip or fore-edge of the tag, but more regular in the lower section, suggesting that they were set out (in the casting) to create an openwork design around a definite motif, probably an animal or plant with interlaced fronds or limb extremities. Certainly the regularly-spaced piercings in the lower part, which are arranged in diagonal rows, suggest that the reserved matrix of the bronze was intended to represent an interlacing ribbon or anatomical limb. The general form of the strap end resembles round-ended tags of tenth-century kind like those found at Winchester, cf. e.g. Biddle's Object and Economy, ii, p 498 Fig 124. The hour-glass profile of the piercings (i.e. chamfered on both sides) corresponds to the conventions of casting in this period. The final 6mm of the inner end of the tag is recessed on one side to admit the attachment of a thin strap, the metal thickness here being 1mm, and there are two small (1mm) piercings for attachment rivets.Referenced in Kershaw (2008, 260)
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
|
More Like this...
-
STRAP END
This is a pre-Conquest, Viking-Age…
-
-
Spur
17th century copper alloy complete…
-
SPUR
17th century copper alloy complete…
-
-
-
STRAP END
Incomplete Late Saxon Winchester style…
-
BUCKLE
This is apparently a Viking-age…
-
BUCKLE
This is apparently a Viking-age…
-
STRAP END
Round-ended strapend of tenth-century, Anglo-Viking…
|