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Description: | Cast copper alloy receptacle leg with rounded, tapered 'toe', with a central mid-rib on one side, and lozenge-shaped in section. The foot end of the leg thickens to 17.2 mm towards the toe and the broken top end, which would have attached to the body of the vessel, is 11.7 mm thick. "The sample showed the metal to be a leaded copper alloy which has been heavily corroded with much of the lead removed by corrosion. In the surviving metal matrix there are considerable areas of intermetallic phases which do not have the appearance of the alpha-delta eutectoid (tin-rich parts of the structure) in a plain tin bronze or leaded bronze, but more the appearance of ternary phases, containing copper, tin and arsenic and/or antimony. In other words the metal appears to be the low quality, high arsenic/antimony leaded bronzes used for cheap castware in the Medieval period. The alloy is probably most commonly encountered among metal detector finds as cauldron feet. It is most probable that the find forms part of some such vessel." (report by Dr. Peter Northover of Oxford Materials)Read (1988) illustrates similar examples of receptacle legs with tapered feet on pages 94 and 96, Nos. 584, 592 & 596, which are dated from the 13th to the 17th century.Butler and Green (2003) illustrate a similarly thin leg with parallel sides and central rib on page 139, Fig.2, which is a small cauldron with long legs of Mid-Wales type, which dates from the 16th century. They also illustrate a westcountry cauldron on page 165, No.170, which also has long thin legs with a central rib, but not a tapered foot, which dates from the 15th to the 16th century.
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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