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Description: | An incomplete cast copper alloy dress hook/ clothes fastener, dating to the Post Medieval period, between AD 1600 - 1700 (length: 32mm; width: 16mm; thickness: 1.5mm; weight: 2.3g).At the top of the artefact, there is a rectangular suspension/ attachment loop. This is integrally connected to a decorated central body, which is circular in plan and flat in side section. The central body has a decorated border (thickness: 1.5mm) comprised of fifteen minute pellets that run down from either side of the outside arm of the suspension/ attachment loop to the incomplete hook in the centre below the main body. There is no border decoration between the arms of the suspension/ attachment loop. The inside of the pellet border is also separated from the central decoration by a single linear ridge that runs around the circumference of the main body. Within these borders, the decoation is divided into quarters by a cross with a central pellet. In each quarter, there appears to be a single 'C' or horseshoe-shaped raised feature that points towards the outside edge. As previously mentioned, there is an incomplete hook integrally attached and centrally protruding below the main body of the dress hook (length: 10.5mm), which is broken before the hook would have originally curved backwards behind the artefact. The back of the dress hook is flat and undecorated. Overall, the artefact is in a slightly worn and fair condition with a dark green patina.In the publication 'Norwich Households: Medieval and Post-Medieval Finds from the Norwich Survey Excavations 1971-78', 1993 (page 17), Margeson states that the dress hook or hooked tag 'seems to have undergone a revival in the 16th century, when cast, highly decorated and often openwork examples were popular. They, like their Saxon equivalents, were clearly used for a variety of purposes associated with clothes fastening and accessories'. From material excavated in Amsterdam, some of these tags were 'used at each end of a decorative chain, perhaps for fastening a cloak. The sharp hooks were probably used with cords or hooked straight into the material, rather than with "eyes". The examples from Amsterdam come from late 16th/ early 17th-century contexts' (page 17).Two other associated dress hooks were found at the same findsspot and have been recorded on the PAS database (WMID-A54516 & WMID-A583F3).
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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