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Description: | A very unusual cast copper-alloy folding knife handle with the corroded iron blade within it. The handle is roughly rectangular, with curved sides, and has a zoomorphic terminal. It measures 70mm in length, 22mm in width and 6mm in thickness.
The handle has longitudinal slots down its sides. One slot runs the full length of the edge, and would have allowed the iron blade to be folded out easily. The other is shorter, and so the blade would only have been able to fold out one way. There is a central iron rivet through the centre of the wider end of the handle; this would have held the blade in place, whether folded or unfolded. The blade remains inside the handle and protrudes from one side of it; it is heavily corroded.
The handle is decorated on both faces with openwork holes, which would have originally have allowed the iron blade to be seen through the handle. These openwork holes consist of two pairs of opposing triangles above and below a lozenge shape, with smaller oval holes at either end of the openwork decoration. Although similar openwork patterns can be seen on each side, they are not identical. The openwork design is surrounded, again on both faces, with ring-and-dot motifs arranged in three circles of six motifs around the central lozenge shaped holes and the two oval holes. Again, the design is similar, but not identical, on both faces.
The terminal tapers and depicts the small head of a mouse- or bat-like creature, with moulded oval ears, a protruding brow and a tapering snout. This terminal and indeed the overall shape of the handle is very similar to late 8th- to 10th-century strap ends of Thomas's type A.
No parallel could be found for this very unusual knife. Decorative folding knife handles with iron blades are known from the Roman period, depicting for example a hound chasing a hare and erotic scenes. However, no Roman parallel can be found for the mouse or bat like creature depicted on this handle. As this object is so similar to a late 8th- to 10th-century strap end, it is most likely to be Anglo-Saxon 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: | 800
1000 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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