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Description: | The hook-piece from a copper-alloy post-medieval book-clasp. The artefact is sub-rectangular in shape, having a flared attachment end. It consists of a decorated front-plate and a smaller, plain back-plate. The two sheet elements are rivetted together by a trio of rivets; one towards the top of the back-plate (hook end of the front-plate) and a pair at the attachment end where the clasp flares. The rivets are well finished on the upper surface of the front-plate are are thus difficult to discern; the two at the flared end, which would have also held a leather strap, slightly less so. The front-plate terminates in a curved hook (9.1mm wide). Below this the clasp becomes 17.6mm wide before narrowing to a main body of 15.05mm wide (before the body flares out). It is slightly bevelled on the longer edges. The field is decorated with incised patterns, including longitudinal incisions below the hook (and wider body element) in the form of a rectangle with triangular intrusion. Below this is a large punched ring-and-dot motif. Then, as the body begins to widen, there are three recessed perforations, between which two incised triple-stranded 'pheons'. Approximately below each of the perforations is a 'feathered' motif with diverging side lines, a central line and diagonals between the two. A pair of book-clasps of different proportions but almost identical decoration can be found illustrated in Crummy 1998 (68; refs. 2992, 2993). These similarly decorated examples were given a 17th-century date. This artefact has a red-brown colour with dustings of light green corrosion product, particularly on the lower surface of the front-plate, on the back-plate, and within the incisions and recesses of the decoration. | 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: | 1600
1700 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Robert Webley | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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Clasp
An incomplete copper-alloy post-medieval book-clasp.…
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