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Description: | An incomplete copper alloy stirrup-strap mount dating from the 11th or early 12th century. Length: 52.5mm; width: 30.9mm; depth (including iron corrosion): 13.2mm; mass: 18.3g. In plan, the mount is sub-triangular with gently curved (convex) but incomplete sides and a flat bottom end. The stirrip-strap mount has a trilobed apex, with a circular fixing hole in the upper lobe. It is likely that there is one or more further fixing holes towards the base of the mount, but iron corrosion covers both the front and the reverse. (see "Late Saxon Stirrup-Strap Mounts: A Classification and Catalogue", Williams, 1997, p.60). A flange projects from the reverse of the mount, at a slightly greater angle than 90 degrees. The sub-triangular shape identifies this as a Class A mount using the classification system introduced by Williams (ibid. p.2). The front of the mount is decorated in high relief with a lion, right, looking upwards with open mouth, front paw raised and tail curled above its back. The edges of the mount to either side of the lion are also raised. Below the trilobed apex, there is a raised pendant lobe above the lions open mouth. The design on the front of the object, with the absence of openwork, identifies it as a Class A, Type 11A mount using the classification system suggested by Williams (ibid. p.58-67 and figures 39-43). Williams comments that the sixty-three class 11A mounts that he recorded in his 1997 publication vary from fine quality, skilfully made mounts to debased incoherent versions (ibid. p 58). He notes that lions face both to the left and to the right, but that the most crisply moulded examples face left suggesting that this is the earliest design (ibid.). The reverse of the mount recorded here is undecorated. The mount has a brown pitted surface, other than on the lion which is green/brown. The iron corrosion on the front and reverse of the mount above the flange has a very uneven brown surface. Some material has been lost from the mount at either side of the lion design. The example recorded here is of intermediate quality. The lion is in high relief, with some recessed detail evident on the neck, but the trilobate apex lacks the detail of the more crisp examples which show joined spirals. Williams (1997, p. 3ff) believes that these objects are decorative copper-alloy mounts placed at the junction of the iron stirrup and the stirrup leathers. In terms of dating, Williams (1997, p 8) comments: "It is hard to see much stylistic influence before the Ringerike style or beyond the Urnes style and it seems safe to conclude from this and the limited contextual evidence...that these mounts were in use for a comparatively short period, perhaps from the first quarter of the 11th century at the very earliest, to around 1100 or not long after." On this basis, the stirrup-strap mount described here can be dated from around 1000AD in the late early medieval period to around 1100AD in the Medieval period.
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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