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Description: | A small copper-alloy prick spur, measuring 64mm from terminal to terminal. The sides of this prick spur are curved and one side seems to have been bent inwards slightly; they do not extend to into the straight arms of a U shape like most spurs. They are D-shaped in cross-section and each side measures c43mm in length and c10mm in width. The terminals of each side are animal heads, formed by expanding the D-shape slightly. Each terminal has small oval shaped ears laid back against the head, a prominent brow and small indentations on either side of the head to represent the eyes, although due to wear these are not clear. The snouts are tapering and one terminal animal head has its jaws wide open (they seem to have been bent open further than they would have been originally) with a vertical copper-alloy rivet through them, probably to take a leather strap. The other animal head terminal is more worn but does not appear to have its mouth open. Corroded iron adheres to this terminal and can also be seen inside the closed jaws, it is therefore likely that the mouth was originally open and was later squeezed shut, with an iron rivet within it, which has now corroded. The neck of this spur is circular in cross-section (8.4mm in diameter and 13.7mm in height), it is worn and tapering. There is a deep circumferencial groove at the base of the neck. On the underside of the centre of the neck there is a roughly circular patch of corroded iron, this iron may go through the centre of the neck and have formed the now missing goad. Slight traces of corroded iron can be seen on the tip of the neck, which may again be the remains of a seperate iron goad. The style of the animal heads may be compared to other examples of the 'fleshy' beast-heads found in ninth century contexts: see, for instance, the applied heads on the North Elmham Censer, and the sculpted heads of fleshier type at Deerhurst (Glos). To these are also related the animal-head finials with round set-back ears found on the silver-wire-inlaid strap-ends of East Anglia. These parallels suggest a date from the last part of the eighth century down to the mid-late ninth.
This prick spur is similar in style to one found at Gooderstone, Norfolk, although this parallel is decorated with asymmetric bead-and-reel mouldings as well as having animal head terminals. Other parallels come from Pakenham and Icklingham, Suffolk (Hinton 1974, 55-6) and from Ipswich musem discovered at Ixworth, Suffolk. These copper-alloy spurs are unlike earlier spurs (in graves) and later (Viking) spurs, both in their shape and material ( the earlier and later spurs are made of iron and their sides are a deep U-shape). At the moment they seem to be a rare East Anglian type and are most likely to be mid Anglo-Saxon, c750-900 in date. | 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: | 750
900 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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