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Description: | A very unusual copper-alloy possible mount, most likely to be late early-medieval or Viking Age, 11th century in date, as it has Ringerike-style decoration.
It is flat and measures 55mm in length and 30mm in width. Its plate is roughly rectangular in shape overall, with shaped edges. One terminal end has a central solid three-dimensional triangular projection or prong which curves up slightly from the plane of the plate; this is 15mm in length, 8mm in width and 7mm in thickness.
The object resembles a bird, as it has oval incisions representing eyes and a longitudinal groove probably depicting the middle of the beak. There are two pairs of small opposing U-shaped notches in the edges of the mount, then an opposing pair of larger U-shaped notches behind these, forming the front of two curvilinear rectangular projections which could be seen as the wings of the bird. Finally the other terminal tapers to a rounded tip, possibly the bird?s tail.
The front face of the mount is decorated with engraved grooves representing animals. From the photograph the top animal is easiest to see, with a curving neck cut straight across and an eye and a nose with curling lappet behind it. Then there is another curling lappet coming up from behind the eye, making it look a bit deer-like. Its opposite number is likely to have been engraved by someone who could only do them one way round, as it is very unclear and nearly impossible to identify as an animal. The other loop over the animal head could possibly be another lappet. The rest of the decoration is below two parallel oval perforations and does not seem to depict animals but to be space-filling.
The function of the two parallel oval holes is unclear. They may be too oval to have been rivet holes, and could be decorative. They have iron corrosion around them, especially on the reverse, and there are traces of iron corrosion which seems to run in longitudinal lines up either side of the reverse, implying that this probable mount was attached to an iron object originally.
No close parallel could be found for this possible mount and its function remains unclear although its date, 11th century, is certain. SF8381 is similarly shaped and the two may be related. | 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: | 1000
1100 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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