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Description: | Catch-piece from an unusual wrist-clasp of Hines Form C1. A little over half of the catch-piece survives, with a fresh break. It is slightly twisted and may have been distorted by heat, but retains an overall curve from front to rear edge to enable it to fit closely around the wrist. The clasp consists of a rectangular plate measuring 15 mm wide, with a small T-shaped lug on the rear edge and a rectangular loop on the front edge bringing the total width up to 24 mm. The surviving total length is 30 mm and the original length was probably c. 46 mm. The plate has cast relief decoration of the type more usually found on Class C clasps; a semi-circular animal motif with a curving neck and a head at the front edge. The outer edge of the neck is formed by a thick high curving ridge, and within the neck are three running spirals which run downwards, with a small spiral at the top curving the opposite way. The head consists of an eye within a thick upper headframe, decorated with a longitudinal groove, which ends in another spiral curving back on itself. A faint curving grooved ridge runs outwards from the back of the upper frame and ends in a tiny spiral, perhaps representing a lappet. There is also a lower frame around the eye. The prototype for these heads then has a rectangular raised lobe in front of the eye, and a curving beak tucked in to the centre of the semi-circle. This one has a long rectangular lobe running along the front edge of the clasp, and the space in the centre of the animal motif is filled with a rounded blob and a slightly curving line. It is hard to decide whether these two elements should be taken together, as a beak, or separately, as a blob-like cheek and a space-filling line. There would originally have been two of these animal motifs forming what is known as an epsilon shape; the short length of longitudinal bar joining them still survives, with a lower (but still raised) area in front of this, which has an incurved front edge which gives on to the still lower loop. The loop is now fractured at the front; on the reverse it is raised proud of the surface. At the surviving end of the rectangular plate is an undecorated area 5 mm long into which the possible lappet extends. The edge of the animal's neck on Form C1 clasps usually forms the edge of the clasp, and this undecorated area, forming a rectangular plate, is very unusual. It perhaps provides a link between the Class C clasps, with their epsilon-shaped animal decoration, and the Class B clasps which are more often rectangular. The patina varies in colour from green through dark grey to a silvery metal colour. Early Anglo-Saxon, sixth century AD. | Format: | text/html | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ | Publisher: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Rights holder: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Subjects: | archaeology | Temporal: | 500
600 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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