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Description: | Copper alloy, white metal and silverStrap End. Cast zoomorphic strap end. A beast head terminal comprises a snout with large jowls on either side, with a triangular top to the creature's head. The eyes are mere slits between the jowls and the upper part of the head. A pair of rounded ears may suggest this represented bear, mouse or hare - at all events the ears are not pointed so a lupine appearance was not intended. The other end of the strap end represents the paired holes of those varieties of strap end furnished with a bifurcated end for attachment to the strap, but only as decorative features, each indicated by a rectangular panel in relief with two central curved punch-marks to suggest a rivet. A central panel comprises a panel of white metal plating with four inset S-shaped coils of bright silver wire set in two back-to-back pairs; one end of these inset elements has now lifted, and on one side has partially unravelled.The actual fastening was provided by an engrailed and integrally cast tongue or lug of length 15mm and thickness 1.9mm bearing two wide drilled rivet holes of diameter 2.5mm set 6.5mm apart along it. This is offset to project from the featureless back of the strap end so that the lug would be concealed and the end of a narrow strap would appear to abut the false fastening. Dave Haldenby kindly notes that the engrailed edges may suggest the modification of the junction of belt and strap end, perhaps after the loss of the upper leaf of bifurcated attachment. According to this view, the indentations in the remaining tongue - which have no clear function and would not be visible as decoration - may indicate the former provision of paired attachment holes.The design elaborates upon that of the more common one-piece spilt-ended zoomorphic strap ends of the later 8th and 9th centuries, and acknowledges their customary method of attachment. The actual fastening here may have been more robust. However, the decoration of the body more usually accomplished by angular or knotted punched interlace, sometimes enhanced by niello inlay, is in this case painstakingly rendered with inset spirals which appear more Celtic than Germanic in their inspiration.The implications of these idiosyncratic departures from local convention are of some interest, and suggest a noteworthy character for this piece, its maker and his patron.Suggested date: Early Medieval, 800-850.Length: 53mm, Width: 11.2mm, Thickness (at terminal): 4.1mm, Weight: 7.67gms.
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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