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Description: | A Medieval silver terminal of twelfth century date.The terminal has a multi-faceted head best described as being a cube with all of the corners cut off. The cube has a height of 8.12mm and the top of the cube is 8.41mm x 8.21mm. The vertical sides of the cube taper inwards giving base of the cube the dimensions 6.50mm x 6.61mm. The eight flat triangular facets at the corners of the cube are simply decorated by an incised boarder and plain centre. The four vertical and single top lozengiform faces have identical relief decoration of four lozenges set together with the points meeting at the centre. As with many of these artefacts, the grooves around the relief decoration were originally in filled with niello. Only a small amount of the niello survives on this example. At the base of the cube is a circular collar 0.67mm wide with a diameter of 4.79mm in relief. This collar separates the head of the object from the shaft which is circular and has a diameter of 3.86mm immediately below the collar. The shaft flares outwards to a diameter of 4.41mm before an identical collar completes the artefact at the end of the shaft. The lower collar has a diameter of 5.19mm and is 0.83mm wide. The shaft is hollow and two small circular perforations, set opposite each other, are present just above and touching the lower collar. These perforations have a diameter of 1.47mm and would have been used to securely attach the missing part of the artefact into the hollow shaft. Similar artefacts have been interpreted as possibly having been pointers, manuscript markers, strap-ends or composite pins. For examples see Treasure Annual Report (TAR) 2005/6, p.131 & 360, item 2006 T325, fig. 555. TAR 2001, p.68, 2002 T86, fig.119. TAR 2001, p. 69, 2001 T34, fig. 120. TAR 2003, p.115 & 233, 2003 T49, fig. 219 and TAR 2004, p. 116 & 284, 2004 T380, fig.226.As this item is made of at least ten per cent precious metal and is more than 300 years old, it therefore qualifies as treasure as stipulated in the Treasure Act 1996.
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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