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Description: | Iron Age cast copper alloy linch pin terminal. The item is a more or less circular disc with short and long axes of 29.5 and 30.2 millimetres. It is 8.6 millimetres deep, and weighs 30.16 grammes. The upper face has a broad plain edge around a circular setting 8.2 millimetres in diameter. Inside this setting there are three circles set out at regular intervals, as if positioned at the ends of an equilateral triangle. Between (and partially encompassing) these circles is a band of curvilinear forms dominated by triangles with curved sides. Some of the curved sides of these triangles are concave, others are convex. Corrosion makes if difficult to establish if this complex of curved triangles was originally a series of separate items or one contiguous form. The underside of the disc has a hollow rectangular feature some 11.6 by 7.2 millimetres. This was presumably the setting for a (missing) shank or pin. It was presumably iron, to judge by the rust-coloured staining; otherwise the metal is copper-alloy. It is assumed here that the linch-pin (if that is what it is) was composite. That is to say, it was made of copper-alloy (the decorated terminal) and iron (the shank). In the Iron Age, there are three kinds of composite linch-pins: those with vase-headed, crescent-headed, and ring-headed terminals (Hutcheson 2004, 31). This example conforms to none of these, although the disc corresponds exactly to the typology of those that capped vase-headed linch-pins, such as that from Kirkburn (Yorkshire) (Stead 1991, fig.38 no.1). And the plain circles on the upper face find parallels in Iron Age mounts and vase-shaped linch-pin terminals from Norfolk, complete with curved triangles of the kind found here (Hutcheson 2004, 128-9 nos 48-9 and 57-8).A solution to the problem of identification would be to postulate a rare class of composite linch-pin in which a circular disc terminal fitted directly onto an iron shank. That such linch-pins may have existed is suggested by finds from Danebury hill-fort in Hampshire. There, an iron linch-pin copied the vase-headed terminals found elsewhere in bronze. Another iron linch-pin from the fort has a simple disc terminal that might help to explain this find (Sellwood 1984, fig.7.19 nos 2.107-8, 366).The terminal is middle to late Iron Age, and apparently came from a type of linch-pin terminal not to date attested elsewhere in copper-alloy.ReferencesHutcheson, N.C.G., 2004. Later Iron Age Norfolk: Metalwork, Landscape and Society (British Archaeological Reports, British Series 361) (Oxford)Sealey, P.R., 2007. A Late Iron Age Warrior Burial from Kelvedon, Essex (East Anglian Archaeology Report 118) (Colchester)Sellwood, L., 1984. 'Objects of iron', in B.W. Cunliffe, Danebury: An Iron Age hillfort in Hampshire. Vol.2. The Excavations, 1969-1978: The Finds (Council for British Archaeology Research Report 52) (London), 346-71Dr Paul R. Sealey, F.S.A.Curator of ArchaeologyColchester Museum6th October 2009
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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LINCH PIN
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