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Description: | This is an unusual ornamental hinge from a casket or decorative box of some value, or just conceivably from a book cover. One plate only of the hinge survives, together with part of one leaf of the intersecting housings for the bar of the hinge. The plate tapers from a width of some 25mm near to the hinge, over a length of 33mm to a width of 7mm just above a small animal-head terminal itself a further 9mm long and tapering to 2mm width at the tip. The surface of the plate is engraved with fine linework outlining a foliate series of motifs which are roughly symmetrical on the longways axis, enclosing two fleurs de lys with tightly involuted outer leaves. Within the engraved lines gilding is clearly visible. There are three rivet-holes, two near the hinge and one just above the animal-head terminal, by which the plate was fixed to its receiving surface. One of the rivets survives, showing that the receiving material was very thin, for the tip of the rivet or nail is bent over quite close to the metal of the plate. Around this surviving rivet's head, on the upper surface, is an area of gilding showing that the whole surface of the hingeplate was originally covered, only this patch having survived owing to the protective effect of the rivet. The animal head is as if seen from above,rather like the terminal heads on a Middle Saxon strap end, and indeed this has two little raised ears (not swept back, or bublous, like the strap ends) and a series of furrows or wrinkles across the brows, and then the front of the face scooped out with two circles for the eyes. There is some difficulty in deciding whether this should be seen as mid Anglo-Saxon work, or perhaps as early post-Conquest Romanesque, but there is something to be said in favour of each theory. The animals with furrowed brows do occur in eastern English art of c.800 (cf the Brunswick Casket)and the small cat-like ears suggest similar affinities. | 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
1200 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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