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Description: | An early-medieval mount, perhaps from horse harness. It is basically cross-shaped; each arm of the cross is a slightly elongated D shape with a semi-circular or almost circular cut-out on one side, forming a swastika-like shape. The obverse has been gilded and enamelled, and shows traces of silvering. The decoration consists of a central square with relief border divided into four by diagonal ridges. The four sunken triangular cells thus formed are filled with red enamel, each around around a small central sub-triangular dot of reserved copper alloy. Red enamels often decay in places to a yellowy colour which can also be seen.Around the central square are a series of borders. First comes a wide gilded band with a raised central row of beading from which the gilding has now worn away. Outside this comes a raised line, now ungilded. Outside the raised line there is a little more gilding. Each D-shaped arm has traces of silvering or tinning.The reverse is undecorated. An integral spike or rivet projects from the centre, and each D-shaped arm appears to have a small bump on the reverse, clearly evident on three of the four arms. These may have been smaller rivets; although for all four to break off in the same way is remarkable, they may have been cut down.Compare SUSS-CC0C77 for a similar cross-shaped mount, probably from horse-harness. SUSS-CC0C77 has decoration which dates it firmly to the early Anglo-Saxon period (the 5th or 6th centuries) but although the shape of SUSS-3BB4A8 is similar, it is harder to be certain that the date is the same, largely because there is so little enamelled work surviving from the early-medieval period. The use of the swastika shape is well known from the 5th and 6th centuries (it occurs on SUSS-CC0C77), but its formation using circular cut-outs on D-shaped terminals is unusual.A parallel for the broad shape can be seen in a brooch illustrated in schematic form in Abb. 177.9 and 178 in Egon Wamers, 'Fibel und Fibeltracht: Karolingerzeit', pp. 586-602 in H. Beck, H. Jankuhn, H. Steuer and R. Wenskus (eds) Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde begründet von J. Hoops (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin). This brooch was found in Hattem, east Netherlands and is described by Wamers as a Carolingian type, i.e. dating broadly to the 9th century. There is, therefore, a small chance that SUSS-3BB4A8 could date to the middle or later part of the early-medieval period.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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