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Description: | A complete copper alloy stirrup-strap mount dating from the 11th or early 12th century. Length: 49.1mm; width: 28.6mm; depth: 7.4mm; mass: 21.7g. In plan, the mount is sub-triangular with gently curved (convex) sides and a flat bottom end. The stirrip-strap mount has a trilobed apex, with a circular fixing hole in the upper lobe. There are two further fixing holes near to the bottom of the mount, but there are no traces of iron rivets. A right-angled flange projects from the reverse of the mount. The sub-triangular shape identifies this as a Class A mount using the classification system introduced by Williams in : "Late Saxon Stirrup-Strap Mounts: A Classification and Catalogue", 1997, p.2. The front of the mount is decorated in relief with a lion, right, head facing upwards with open mouth and front paw raised. 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 example recorded here appears to be a debased version, broadly similar to number 240 in the catalogue (ibid. figure 41 and p.62). The reverse of the mount is undecorated. It has a brown and green pitted surface. 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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