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Description: | A slightly incomplete, bent, and split sheet copper-alloy wrist-clasp dating from the early medieval period. Mass: 2.0g, approximate length of flat sheet: 37mm; width of sheet: 17.6mm; thickness: 0.9mm.The wrist-clasp is bent but would originally have been sub-rectangular. There is a perfoartion towards each of the narrower ends, near to the more complete of the longer edges. The wrist-clasp is split at both perforations. This find is the catchplate of a pair of wrist-clasps. It has an incomplete slot by one of the longer edges into which a similar but hooked hookplate would have fastened. It is decorated with a single line of five repousse dots within a double frame of smaller repousse dots. The wrist-clasp has a well developed green patina.The catchplate has similar decoration to item 127/3, from a pair of wrist clasps from a female adult grave from the late 5th century to early 7th century Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Empingham II, Rutland (see: "The Anglo-Saxon Cemetary at Empingham II, Rutland", Timby, 1996, 128 fig 161). Wrist-clasps are usually associated with female attire, a custom thought to have be brought to England from Western Norway in the later 5th century (Hines, 1984 et seq., cited in Timby, ibid p.57). This is a Hines form B7 wrist clasp - a type comprising rectangular or rounded plates, plain or with simple decoration sewn to the garment (Hines, 1984, "The Scandinavian Character of Anglian England in the pre-Viking period", Bar 124). This type generally dates to the sixth century (Hines, ibid.) and this is the date suggested for the wrist clasp recorded here.
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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