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Description: | Cast copper-alloy terminal (foot) from a linch pin in the form of a bulbous cone which extends at the apex round into a 'button' terminal, sometimes referred to as a 'hoof' type. The terminal face is circular, 14 mm in diameter, with in a raised oval border, 21 mm in length. The face is decorated with two central circular motifs, 6 mm in diameter, consisting of a pellet within a crescentic circle on its side. The two circles mirror each other with the thinnest aspect on the inside edge, 0.4 mm in thickness, either side of the central line. (For a similar pattern of decoration, see SF-F0F267 from Suffolk.) Behind these raised areas of decoration, the background is plain but would have originally been enamelled. At the opposite attachment end is a single ridged collar. Inside this cylindrical, tapering shaft there is a square socket holding the corroded remains of the iron pin to a length of 8 mm. This terminal was cast on to the iron pin at one end and another copper alloy terminal, or head, was cast onto the other end of the pin. The linch pin was used to hold the wheel hub onto the axel, and in this case, it was probably a chariot wheel.The linch pin foot is a 'Kirkburn' type, named after a chariot burial in East Yorkshire, and dates from the Late Iron Age period, from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. "The Kirkburn linchpins belong to a well-known type (Spratling 1972, Group III - vase-headed linchpins) within the Arras Culture. Elsewhere in southern England several decorated examples are known, including one from Owslebury, Hants (Collis 1968, p. 31, Pl. xii), and the type was manufactured at Gussage All Saints (Foster 1980, p.18)" from Stead (1991) pages 44-7.Other linch pins that have been found in Cornwall include a vase-headed terminal from St Goran (NARC-37A496), published in CAJ 41-42 (2006) by Anna Tyacke on page 146, Fig.2; and a complete example from Trevelgue Head, Newquay, about to be published by Jennifer Foster in Nowakowski & Quinnell (2007 draft), section 8.2, No.90258.Hutcheson (2004) illustrates similar examples of decoration on pages 109-10, Nos. 46, 48-9, and dates these from about 100 BC to 100 AD. The employment of raised ring and dot motifs in two first century AD examples from Attleborough (Hutcheson, 2004: pp. 110, nos. 48-49). For a similar terminal foot on a complete linch pin see the Stanwick Hoard example illustrated in The British Museum and Smith (1925) on page 141, No. 157, and a recent find from Devon, (COOK-527973), which was copied and made into a complete replica, and is now on display at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.
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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