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Description: | Silvered copper-alloy object, perhaps a mount from a box. The mount is long and thin and terminates with an open-mouthed animal with an upturned snout, probably representing a dragon. The head is rectangular in section and the only facial feature represented is the dragon's ears, depicted by two small moulded humps. The beast's neck appears to be undecorated, but the body is covered with moulded diagonal grooves, probably representing scales. The tail is D-shaped in section and is covered with a line of transverse grooves. The tip of the tail is slightly flattened.
There are three attachment features along the main section of the beast's body. On the underside nearest the neck there is a downward-pointing right-angled blunt-ended projection. Next to this is a vertically drilled rivet hole. Finally, nearest to the tail there is another vertically drilled rivet hole still containing part of a copper-alloy rivet. This set of three attachment points is curious, and it is possible that the drilled holes are a later addition. The integral stud on the lower side might have served as an attachment point to a strap, and the drilled holes might have been put in at a later date either to strengthen the bond, or to serve as a repair if the original stud had broken during the life of the object.
To date there are five close parallels, one of which comes from Suffolk and is recorded on the Portable Antiquities Database as SF-8E6271 . The other parallel is recorded on the database as LIN-4F65C5 , however the provenance of this example is not yet known. All three of these ?dragons? have been published in Medieval Archaeology for 2005, p. 345-6, figs. 7c and 7d. Three further examples on the Portable Antiquities Database come from North Yorkshire (NLM5639 and SWYOR-761334) and Norfolk (NMS-249246). All six have an integral right-angled blunt-ended spike or peg on the underside towards the front of the body (two in the case of the Suffolk example), plus a hole in the centre of the object which on SWYOR-761334 holds a separate three-dimensional figurine of a bird. One or two separate rivets towards the tail were presumably used to attach these objects to a base, perhaps the lid of a box. A seventh example, NMS-265275, found in Norfolk, is simpler in design with the remains of the spike or peg only.
An object with a similar animal head has been found in Nottinghamshire and recorded on the Portable Antiquities Database as DENO-47F426 . The attachment features of this object are, however, somewhat different. The Nottinghamshire example has no drilled holes or integral studs; instead, it has a split riveted terminal as typically found on Anglo-Saxon and Medieval strap ends. It might be worth also comparing SWYOR-CB2705.
Although a stratified parallel has not yet been found, it is likely considering the style of the group that they all belong to the earlier part of the Medieval period. | 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: | 1100
1200 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Adam Daubney | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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