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Description: | Date: 9th century.Description: Polyhedral socketed gold terminal ornamented with a pattern of deeply cut roundels seperated by lozenge-shaped fields, containing respectively triangles and squares inlaid with niello. Each roundel additionally contains three plain pellets. The short socket extends from a narrow collar below the head and ends in another. It is pierced by a rivet. The precise function of this object is not clear. Its small size, narrow socket and a lack of smooth flattened base (and thus its unsuitability for sliding across a page) set it apart from the four so called 'aestels' or manuscript pointers, all of which have sockets with internal diameters that are twice the size of this, flat bases, and are significantly larger. In form, the head resembles the polyhedral-headed middle Saxon pin types, some of which have ring and dot or more elaborate decoration, like the large example from the Trewhiddle hoard. However, although one or two rare examples of separately attached heads are known, none resembles this, which seems to have been fixed to an organic shaft or other organic object. An alternative explanation might be that it was a decorative hanging bobble of some kind - for example from a rich garment or vestment such as an ecclesiastical band or stole. The use of nielloed geometric decoration has later 9th century Trewhiddle-style parallels, for example on a group of silver sword fittings, and on the Anglo-Saxon gold ring in the great Viking hoard from Hon, Norway.Author; Leslie Webster; Treasure Report: 1998-1999. No. 70
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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