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Description: | Part of a medieval tile with stamped decoration. This may be part of a floor or wall-mounted tile, and consists of one right-angled corner with a border along both sides decorated with a row of ring and dot motifs made with a stamp 15.07mm in diameter. There are four such motifs in a row running up the tile, and three in a row along the base. The border measures 28.57mm in width along the base and c.49mm in width along the side of the tile. The border surrounds a central rectangular panel which is incomplete due to old breaks and is divided longitudinally by a narrow band 86.5mm long, 11mm in width at the base tapering to 8.5mm near the top broken edge.To the left there is relief decoration depicting a standing figure with an elongated, triangular-shaped upper body, a belt, and a knee-length tunic from which the legs and feet emerge, facing right right. There is a neck at the top of the garment but the tile is broken off and the head is missing. Along the left side of the figure and within the panel is a zig-zag border of seven projecting triangles. To the right of the figure is an arm with a hand holding an object which may be the pommel of a sword whose blade descends to a point. This arm appears to be attached to the vertical band dividing the panel, and may have been mirrored to the right where a second possible sword can be seen, also having a round pommel, hilt and long blade. An alternative suggestion is that these objects represent fish rather than swords. Caryl Dane comments " The shapes reminded me of Alveston Manor 5 great square-headed brooch catch-piece, illustrated in Hines, 1997, Figure 49a and described as a fish-shape.There is a rounded terminal at the top of the band. There are traces in the field of a yellow infil, presumably glaze or slip, and a darker slip or glaze is also suggested by a darker deposit on some parts of the surface of the tile. The width of the vertical border with ring and dot motifs suggests that the tile may originally have been quite wide and rectangular. Assuming a mirror-image from the vertical band, the complete tile would be 180mm wide. However, the figure that survives may have been flanking a larger composition, such as saint or biblical scene, assuming a church or monastic location, originally, for the tile. It could also be part of a larger scene composed of several separate tiles. The fragment measures 131.07mm in length, 144.11mm in width, 29mm in thickness, and weighs 700g.David Sherlock's work on Medieval Suffolk floor tiles catalogues a wide range of designs none of which is quite like this. However some with geometric designs include ring and dot or concentric circles for example no.120 from Butley Priory and no.135 from Sudbury, St Peter. Its discovery at Oulton, close to the coast could indicate a continental source for its origins.
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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