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Description: | Description: Copper-alloy strap-end with two silver rivets. It is a large and well-made example, although now corroded and with details hard to see. The strap-end is relatively thick and narrow, roughly D-shaped in cross-section, and has a squared split attachment end which retains part of the mineral-preserved strap between the two small silver rivets. The rivets look as if they were originally neatly made, but one has since been spread and blurred by pressure and abrasion.The strap-end is in the form of a double animal head, one head forming the terminal and the other facing the attachment end. The latter has moulded oval eyes with dot centres; these lie directly in front of the end of the split. The dots are black, and may be made from niello. Above the eyes, the brow slopes down to a thinner nose before rising up again towards the rivets, which appear to form the nostrils; this nose is decorated with a barely-visible relief V which flares out from between the eyes. There is a blackish patch in the centre of the V, which may be niello inlay.The animal-head terminal is larger and more elaborate. Again there are oval eyes forming the edge of the object, but above these are flat oval ears laid on top of the strap-end, each of which appears to be decorated with a ring of inlaid niello. Below the eyes is a narrowed, blunt-ended nose with a shiny black patch on the flat triangular top, again probably niello.The backs of the two animals' heads are linked by a central narrowed area, decorated with a slender nielloed lozenge on top, probably representing a pair of linked necks. The reverse is flat and undecorated.Dimensions: It is 61mm long and 10mm at its widest. It is 4.5mm thick. The split end is split for 12mm, and the blunt 'nose' is 5mm wide.Discussion: This strap-end is difficult to parallel exactly. It has affinities with several of Thomas's Class B types. The double-headed motif has similarities with the Class B4 (multi-headed), and the simple nielloed decoration has links with strap-ends such as KENT-804003.The use of silver rivets on otherwise apparently copper-alloy objects is becoming increasingly recognised, with recent examples of Thomas Class A strap-ends including WMID-D4D9F2 (2013T797), LVPL-FE8590 (2013T46), SUSS-104EF1 (2012T915) and NMS-F64615 (2012T188). Thomas Class B strap-ends are rarer, but apparently copper-alloy examples with silver rivets include BH-3A1748 (2012T391). There are also several examples of pins and brooches of 8th- and 9th-century date with separate silver rivets; occasionally, as with brooch NARC-E11208 (2011T530) the copper-alloy element is found on analysis to be base silver.Date: Class B strap-ends are dated by Thomas to the 9th to 11th centuries (2003, 4). The use of silver rivets on otherwise apparently copper-alloy objects appears to be commonest in the 8th and 9th centuries. It seems likely, then, that this strap-end should be dated to the 9th century AD.
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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