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Description: | An incomplete copper-alloy mount of Carolingian design and 8th-century date. It is triangular, 35mm in height and 34 mm in width; all its edges are worn and the corners especially appear to be incomplete. The mount appears to have been cast; the back face is flat, very slightly concave, and rough to the touch. The front face has moulded decoration, which has been gilded and silvered extensively.
The front face has a raised three-armed part, which radiates from the centre of the mount; each arm terminates in a corner of the mount. The arms are rectangular in shape and each one terminates in a trefoil. The arms are covered in silver foil on their upper face and down their sides, and further decorated by grooves filled with niello. There is a circular nielloed groove in the centre of the design, a longitudinal nielloed groove running along the centre of each arm, and two transverse nielloed grooves at the end of each arm before the trefoil terminals. These terminals also have a nielloed groove running down the centre of each foil. One of the trefoil terminals, which terminates in the most complete corner of the mount, has a moulded lozenge shape projecting from it to the corner, which is also covered in silver foil. Each corner of the mount almost certainly had such a motif originally, but the other two are more incomplete due to wear.
The base of the raised three-armed part is surrounded by a deep groove. Between the arms there are three stylised foliate designs; each fills the rounded triangular space and consists of four pointed-oval shapes flanked by a scroll-like spiral shape at either end. The oval shapes become gradually taller, to form a central rounded point and each one has a deep groove running down its centre. These motifs are all gilded, as is the field around them.
The edges of the mount are worn, but along one edge in particular U-shaped notches can be seen. The corners of the mount are incomplete and there may have originally have been attachment devices, such as rivet or sewing holes in these corners. On the back face there are traces of a silvery grey deposit which may be the remains of a solder; this and the possible rivet or sewing holes would have allowed the mount to be attached to a larger object. What this mount may have been attached to remains uncertain; when viewed in profile, however, the mount is very slightly curvilinear, with a slightly concave reverse, which may imply that it was attached to a vessel of some kind.
This mount has been examined by Kevin Leahy and Anna Gannon, who both confirm that it is Carolingian in style and similar to other mounts discovered in Viking Age hoards. Another more complete mount of a similar style was found nearby (SF- 93D943). | 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: | 700
800 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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